tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38785923634299928602017-11-22T14:30:54.569+00:00This Time It's PersonalExercising My Inner CurmudgeonWilliam Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-15989429115954269872014-03-20T19:48:00.002+00:002014-03-26T14:42:24.515+00:00Bingo Budget Bulletin<div class="MsoNormal"><br />Once we start deciding everything for ourselves, will Scots miss the theatricality of Budget Day?&nbsp; The line-up of shop-window dummies outside Number 11, with the Chancellor holding up the red briefcase that, unbeknownst to all, contains only sandwiches and a rolled-up newspaper.&nbsp; The 300-yard limo drive to the House of Commons, expensively filmed by the BBC from a helicopter because they’ve got your TV licence money, so bollocks to you!&nbsp; The adversarial ranks of testosterone-addled louts, immune from everyday concerns, bellowing insults at each other and kept at bay only by an improbably pint-sized Speaker.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Then there’s the tradition that permits the Chancellor a drink of his choice during the speech, the only time alcohol’s allowed at the despatch box.&nbsp; In their day&nbsp;Brown and Darling opted for mineral water, which was fine, because I wouldn’t like to see either of them too excited. Kenneth Clarke, who would rather have been lying back with headphones listening to Miles Davis, endured his ordeal with the aid of whisky.&nbsp; Gladstone drank “sherry and beaten egg”, although he may have been secretly chastising himself for some personal misdemeanour.&nbsp; George Osborne’s tipple looks like water, though it wouldn’t surprise me if it were actually the tears of the poor.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s very different from Holyrood, where there’s plenty of knockabout humour and gnashing of teeth to titillate the public gallery, especially when Johann Lamont is confronted with matters of detail, but nothing so compelling in dramatic terms.&nbsp; Still, there’s nothing in my life these days to approach the thrill of&nbsp;<i>Thunderbirds</i>, Marvel Comics or sherbet dabs, either. &nbsp;But that’s all right, because I’ve grown up.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s no doubt that George enjoys being in the spotlight, and not just because it helps to disguise his otherwise vampiric complexion.&nbsp; It’s a great opportunity for him to put the boot in while others can only watch helplessly, summing up in one bravura performance the whole outlook of the Coalition Government.&nbsp; His wickedest moment yesterday came when he announced funding for celebrations of the 800<span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span>&nbsp;anniversary of the Magna Carta, which he reminded us was the story of a weak leader, who betrayed his brother and was bullied by powerful barons.&nbsp; The House erupted into laughter, as in response Ed Miliband's control chip activated his “smile” app while he waited for Ed Balls to explain the joke to him.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">George was particularly pleased with himself this year, because the economy had grown to the point where he could afford to buy the Office For Budget Responsibility a new dartboard for its forecasts. Naturally, he attributed this to austerity, a brilliant economic strategy that he would gladly enshrine in the Constitution, if only the UK had one.&nbsp; That’s as may be, but if I smash you to a pulp with a baseball bat, and you subsequently recover sufficiently to live a normal life, it doesn’t make me an orthopaedic surgeon.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Treasury’s “lazy stereotype” unit had obviously told George that potential UKIP voters were mainly elderly people with piggy banks, because he unleashed a massive love-bomb on savers and pensioners. When he announced that £15,000 annual ISA limit, I’ll bet the champagne corks were popping in Easterhouse. &nbsp;As for easing restrictions on retirees, allowing them to blow their entire pension pot on drink and drugs, what a splendid boot in the knackers for annuity providers!&nbsp; Standard Life must be considering moving to Sevastopol, where the outlook is more certain.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Any crusties needing to offload some cash might want to pop down to the bingo, if their local hall isn’t too packed with hard-working people who want to get on, or to the pub, where for the second year in a row George ran a “buy 300, get one free” offer on pints of beer.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The Tories were so proud of these concessions to the proles that their resident idiot, Grant Shapps, decided to publish a colourful poster claiming credit for helping folk “do more of the things they enjoy”.&nbsp; Unfortunately, as Twitter went into meltdown, it soon became clear that what they enjoyed was humiliating the Tories for talking patronising pish.&nbsp; I don’t yet know under which of his many false names Grant will appear in the soon-to-be-published&nbsp;<i>Great PR Gaffes Of All Time</i>, but I’ll try to find out once my sides stop hurting.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">With a significant expression of Scottish voters’ wishes falling due in six months, we were agog to see how George would play things. &nbsp;We already knew that the pound we weren’t going to be allowed to have would be changing, taking on the shape, and by 2017 possibly also the value, of the old threepenny bit.&nbsp; What noise would the new coin make, we wondered, as it clunked ineffectively into the reject tray of a slot machine?&nbsp; Would there be compensation for people whose jacket pockets would be destroyed?&nbsp; After independence, would Scottish engineering firms still be allowed to build the new fleet of supermarket trolleys?&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the end, George didn’t offer Scotland much in the way of bribery.&nbsp; I think we’re just not his type, dear.&nbsp; And we could have done without the little victory jig when he indicated that North Sea tax receipts were lower than forecast.&nbsp; However, at least he didn’t raise whisky duty above its present eye-popping level, and Scottish firms did share in his attempts to breathe life into the corpse of UK manufacturing.&nbsp; He even tweaked Air Passenger Duty a little, although not enough for the BBC to start pressing Willie Walsh to recant his views on independence.&nbsp; Yet.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As for the inevitable stiletto, we were too busy watching George’s lips to notice it being inserted between our ribs.&nbsp; Buried deep within the crannies of the Red Book was the reduction, in real terms, of Scotland’s block grant for the coming year.&nbsp; John Swinney is an equable chap, but I’m sure he must sometimes want to sneak into a private sound-proofed cubicle and unleash a blood-curdling primal scream.&nbsp; &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Well done, James Cook of BBC Scotland, for spotting that little piece of jiggery-pokery.&nbsp; There is hope for you and your colleagues yet. Now chair a TV debate where Better Together aren’t permitted to lie their socks off, ye wee scamp!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As with all Budgets, we’re now in the honeymoon period.&nbsp; First impressions never reflect the full horror that lies slumbering within the Red Book.&nbsp; However, it’s good to see that George has already put the ever-willing Danny Alexander in place as a human shield for the coming storm, whatever form it may take. &nbsp;Let’s see how long his zealous infatuation with the Tories survives that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Barring unimaginable political upheaval, George will be back for another dramatic extravaganza next March.&nbsp; Will it be his finale as far as Scotland is concerned, or the start of a series of increasingly irritating curtain calls?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">One ballot paper, one question, one moment in history.&nbsp; You know what to do.<br /><br />*******************************************************************************<br /><br /><i>If you're interested in the Scottish independence referendum, why not have a read of my "To September And Beyond" blog&nbsp;<a href="http://williamduguid.blogspot.co.uk/">here</a>? &nbsp;It's completely biased, of course.</i><br /><br /></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-11634179456294135062014-03-08T11:03:00.001+00:002014-03-08T11:03:33.933+00:00A Barrage Of Balloons<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Sorry I haven't been around these parts for a little while. &nbsp;Here's some of what I've been getting up to on my other blog. You know, the one with all the references to Scottish politics no-one south of Berwick can understand....</i><br /><br />Weren’t the Oscars a disappointment?&nbsp; Faced with the planet’s foremost assembly of emotionally incontinent attention-seekers fuelled by mind-altering substances, the No campaign couldn’t persuade even&nbsp;<i>one</i>&nbsp;of them to supply a vacuous sound-bite about Scotland staying in the UK!&nbsp; We were treated to the biggest “selfie” in history, and there wasn’t an embarrassing tartan jacket in sight, nor a single designer handbag with a petite Union Jack poking coquettishly out.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I suppose it’s possible the silly buggers entrusted the flag to Liza Minnelli, only for her to end up hopping about in frustration at the back of the photo group, searching in vain for a stepladder. &nbsp;But if we move back into reality, the truth is obvious: &nbsp;they’ve called off the love-bombing because they just don’t fancy us any more. &nbsp;Perhaps it was our constant references to Norway that put them off, or our indiscreet hand gestures during Dave’s Olympics address.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The violins may have stopped playing, but the bombardment continues.&nbsp; Now it’s a barrage of bouncing bombs, skittering along the river towards the dam of Scottish self-confidence.&nbsp; “You’ll be uniquely unable to use any currency whatsoever.”&nbsp; “You’ll be chucked out of the EU, but mysteriously be bound by its rules.”&nbsp; “You’ll be walking away from the BBC…. oh, hang on, maybe that’s a good thing…”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In fact they’re not really bombs, but giant balloons filled with noxious gas, much like the people who launch them.&nbsp; Anybody capable of sharpening a pencil can easily pop them, albeit never loudly enough for the mainstream media to notice.&nbsp; But we’re dealing with the UK establishment, where you earn a gong by repeating the same crap over and over again, so the balloons keep coming.&nbsp; The last week or so has brought an exciting new trend, where many of the balloons have sported a “highly respected” company logo and, according to the BBC, carried the message “Vote Yes and get the sack, losers!”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">That's because it’s the corporate reporting season, when, as a condition of the pen-pushers signing off on their accounts, companies must draw attention to any risks they believe will affect operations.&nbsp; Even though the UK economy is a Ponzi scheme teetering on the edge of meltdown, they’re not allowed to cast aspersions on the status quo.&nbsp; Independence, on the other hand, is just the ticket to set alarm bells jangling, especially if it means a firm might be properly regulated and any fraudsters thrown in the clink for a change.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This is particularly relevant for the financial sector, which a couple of weeks ago was a ravening monster whose demands would suck Scotland dry, but is now a pillar of national prosperity we can’t afford to lose.&nbsp; Hence the hullaballoo about Standard Life “threatening Scottish jobs”, even though that’s not really news, because they sack people all the time, especially when the directors’ bonus pool needs topping up.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Similarly, Alliance Trust, tiptoeing on to the scene today with a bland statement about forming additional companies, soon found themselves waving in the wind on top of the media flagpole, as commentators sucked their teeth in concern.&nbsp; By contrast, Aviva, through the brilliant stratagem of announcing they weren’t fussed about independence, guaranteed themselves peace and privacy for the duration of the campaign.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s difficult to conceive of any situation that can’t be made more annoying by the intervention of a banker.&nbsp; Sure enough, an old Square Mile chum of Robert Peston popped his head out of the trough the other day to deliver a sly tip-off.&nbsp; While looking for buried treasure, he’d found a cobweb-encrusted piece of European legislation, forgotten by everyone and never tested in the courts.&nbsp; After some restoration work with Tipp-Ex and a felt pen, lo!&nbsp; the magic document proclaimed that upon independence RBS and Lloyds would have to move their head offices from Edinburgh to London.&nbsp; Surprisingly, Robert assumed we’d interpret this as bad news, whereas it actually prompted a surge in sales of pitchforks and firebrands as we prepared to help them on their way.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In opposing independence, oil companies are on the sort of sticky wicket that defies all lubrication.&nbsp; As soon as they praise the UK as a bastion of stability and continuity, it’s a fair bet that Osborne will move the taxation goal-posts again and UKIP will have a five-point boost in the opinion polls. &nbsp;They also know that it would be a bugger of a job to extract the oil, transport it into English waters, bury it and extract it again, just to keep in with the chancers at Westminster.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So the oil sector’s comments about independence tend to be restricted to remarks by chief executives, whose grasp of the real world slipped away long ago.&nbsp; Bob Dudley’s pro-Union views in a BBC interview were sentimental claptrap, albeit carefully judged to mask his own diabolical performance at BP.&nbsp; Still, at least they were internally consistent, unlike those of Ben van Beurden, who at Shell’s annual reception waxed lyrical about the certainty provided by the EU, but didn’t notice that a Yes vote might be the best way to prevent it being flushed down the toilet.&nbsp; Perhaps he was simply reading from the script Mr Cameron left behind after the Cabinet had finished posing in Shell’s Aberdeen offices.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And so it goes on, and on, and on.&nbsp; The nay-sayers in the mainstream media are in clover here, because unless a company has something to gain from independence, such as British Airways hoping for Air Passenger Duty cuts, it isn’t going to leap on the Yes bandwagon in its annual report, any more than it would eulogise about its favourite colour or Kylie Minogue single.&nbsp; So the best we can hope for is neutrality, although that hope seems somewhat forlorn when so many company boards are festooned, like Standard Life’s, with former Thatcher acolytes.&nbsp; “What would Maggie do?” they ask themselves, and the answer’s always “Knee Scotland in the balls!”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, a million miles from the microphones and the lurid headlines, membership of the pro-independence group Business For Scotland has hit 1400 and continues to rise.&nbsp; They’re mainly small enterprises, trying to make a living for their owners and the ordinary folk they employ, so they needn’t expect Westminster to give them so much as the time of day.&nbsp; But they have a clear glimpse of something that’s plainly in front of us, when it isn’t obscured by the Unionist propaganda that surrounds us like a cloud of midges.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Hope, not fear.&nbsp; Opportunity, not risk.&nbsp; A decent society, not an austerity-ridden hellhole.<br /><br />And maybe, just maybe, the chance of a Saltire in next year’s Oscars selfie.<br /><br /></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-32424479452953765982014-02-15T17:01:00.003+00:002014-02-15T17:12:12.752+00:00Après Le Déluge<br /><div class="MsoNormal">In May 2012 the good folk of Staines, down the road from where I used to live, upgraded the name of their town to Staines-upon-Thames.&nbsp; They were trying to boost the local economy by promoting its riverside location, albeit with the unfortunate side-effect of making it sound like a layer of scum.&nbsp; Two winters later, it turns out they simply got the words in the wrong order:&nbsp; it should have been Thames-upon-Staines.&nbsp; As for the local economy, sadly, the river’s been not so much a shot in the arm as a punch in the guts.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I get stressed and shouty when I can’t find my keys or the broadband connection goes wonky, so I shudder to imagine what sort of meltdown would ensue if an endless tide of filthy water ever came frothing through my living room.&nbsp; When I walked the Thames Path a couple of years ago, in the days before scuba gear was required, I did feel twinges of envy at some of the fantouche properties strung out along the riverbank.&nbsp; Yes, householders, I was that furry lardball in shorts flicking surreptitious V-signs at your dream home.&nbsp; But don’t worry:&nbsp; BBC News 24’s relentless visual onslaught has touched my heart, and now I weep for you along with everyone else. &nbsp;(I know that probably isn’t helping much.)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">If the Jet Stream hadn’t shimmied southwards as smoothly as John Travolta in his heyday, this fusillade of gales and tempests would be battering the west of Scotland, and the BBC would be struggling to fit the story in between shots of Andrew Mitchell removing his cycle clips and ageing celebrities arriving at court for their acquittal. &nbsp;The narrative would be far simpler too, since clearly the whole thing would be Alex Salmond’s fault. &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In England, where media bias is more evenly distributed, the question of who gets the blame is more complex.&nbsp; But now that the devastation has spread from rural areas to the homes of people who actually count for something, it’s becoming hugely important.&nbsp; We know this because every politician who pops up on the screen is now swearing blind it doesn’t matter a jot.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">David Cameron, discomfited to find Kent and Somerset locals haranguing him rather than strewing rose petals in his watery path, swiftly concluded that “lessons had to be learned”. &nbsp;In his case the lesson proved to be “I need a human shield”, which led to a fresh outbreak of Owen Paterson, a comedy legend in the shadowy world of ready meals, but not exactly a dab hand at retrospectively dredging rivers. &nbsp;Mr P gave everyone involved six weeks to sort it all out, or he’d come down on them like a ton of bricks, just as he’d done with the badgers.&nbsp; It was empty posturing, naturally, but enough to leave the scapegoat vacancy tantalisingly unfilled.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The situation clearly demanded an amiable but undynamic peer with Labour connections, nominal responsibility for the crisis and his hands tied behind his back. &nbsp;Lord Chris Smith, in the three hours he was allowed in Somerset before being yanked to safety by a giant shepherd’s crook, could hardly have had a worse reception if he’d set about a wasp’s nest with a golf club.&nbsp; When he said flood prevention meant difficult decisions and he was proud of his Environment Agency staff, it was undoubtedly true, but it was also as welcome as a doctor telling you, “The NHS has some smashing drugs, but you’re not getting any because, with your lifestyle and genetics, you’re completely buggered.” &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Ladbroke’s immediately stopped taking bets on the identity of the scapegoat. &nbsp;The local Tory MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger, a man of royal blood currently 309<span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span>&nbsp;in line to the throne, shook off the shackles of in-breeding to deliver the lacerating critique, “He’s a git… he’s a coward… I’d like to stick his head down the loo and flush.”&nbsp; Could Disraeli have put it more wittily?&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There was little comfort for Lord Smith at Westminster, where Owen Paterson was undergoing an eye operation and had temporarily been replaced by Eric Pickles, who is still waiting for his people skills operation.&nbsp; On the <i>Andrew Marr Show</i> Eric weighed in, horrific as that may sound, by blaming the Government’s failure to carry out repeatedly requested dredging in Somerset on bad advice from the Environment Agency, bleating that “we thought we were talking to experts”.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As Messrs Osborne, Balls and Alexander may shortly discover in connection with the Scottish referendum, you don’t back people into a corner unless you’ve taken the standard Tory precautions of breaking their arms and legs.&nbsp; The Environment Agency soon had a snarky rebuttal doing the rounds, pointing out that successive governments had slashed their overall funding and the current lot’s arbitrary spending limits prevented them from recommending any course of action that had the remotest chance of achieving anything.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The spotlight was shifting and the outermost reaches of Eric’s ample girth began to appear in its glare.&nbsp; Cartoonists sharpened their pencils and depicted his buttocks as the ultimate sandbag.&nbsp; But, as everyone knows, weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.&nbsp; Eric went straight to the despatch box and poured out undying admiration for the EA’s works, in words that definitely didn’t contradict his previous statements, though they happened to have the same pronunciation as ones that did. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the Thames Valley was now underwater and civilisation under threat.&nbsp; Instead of a couple of squaddies with a bucket awaiting orders that would never come, we had whole battalions of beefy troops and even a couple of Royal princes manning the pumps to divert the flood from the playing fields of Eton.&nbsp; David Cameron promised “money is no object”, at which the Chancellor’s eyes grew even more coal-black, his complexion slightly greener and his vision of Dave’s ultimate death at his hands more painful.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Into the breach now stepped Philip Hammond, the man who sneers at an independent Scotland’s ability to defend itself while allowing Russian ships to roam unchecked in Scottish waters.&nbsp; He’s anxious for his troops to relieve the crisis speedily, so that he can get on with giving them their P45s. Moreover, he’s the MP for Runnymede, a place coincidentally just downstream of Datchet, which got lots of help with manpower and sandbags, and across the river from Wraysbury, which didn’t.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Philip therefore didn’t look entirely comfortable on <i>Newsnight</i>, explaining to a live audience in the George Inn at Wraysbury why they, unlike their neighbours on the opposite bank, had been left to fend for themselves.&nbsp; Er, it was down to the differing “topography” of the two areas, announced Philip queasily, playing the duffest “Get Out Of Jail Free” card you could possibly imagine.&nbsp; Nothing like a nearby Cabinet Minister’s footprint to change the landscape in subtle but important ways.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In truth, it’s difficult to envisage a level of preparation adequate for weather conditions last seen when Mozart was doing his pre-pubescent tour of Europe.&nbsp; But the current crisis is a genuine once-in-a-lifetime exception &nbsp;- isn’t it? - and, however prolonged it may be, the inundation will at some point go away.&nbsp; Westminster politicians with a penchant for empty promises and circular back-stabbing are, I’m afraid, harder to get rid of, since you can’t even sack one without inadvertently electing a replica. &nbsp;&nbsp;Until we learn not to give attention-seeking loudmouths a respectful hearing, but to fling them into the nearest dungeon and throw away the key, this problem will simply continue.<o:p></o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal">If only we had some sort of Ark to take us away from it all.&nbsp; Whatever the uncertainties of the voyage, I’d happily clamber on board and I’m sure a lot of people living around me would too.&nbsp; We could give it an ambitious forward-looking name, such as the “Ark of Prosperity”.&nbsp; What would we use for currency?&nbsp; You know, I don’t flaming care.<o:p></o:p><br /><br /></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-36925563077062355722014-02-07T14:33:00.000+00:002014-02-07T18:24:16.333+00:00The Greatest Love-Bomber of All<div class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i><i>Mr Cameron addresses three-quarters of the nation.</i><br /><br />People of England, Wales and Northern Ireland!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Scotland!&nbsp; Stop pulling that face.&nbsp; This is&nbsp;<i>about&nbsp;</i>you, but it’s not&nbsp;<i>for</i>&nbsp;you.&nbsp; Daddy’s speaking to the other children now.&nbsp; Don’t interrupt.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; Because it’s rude.&nbsp; Look, I don’t care if that IS what Evan Davis does on the&nbsp;<i>Today</i>&nbsp;programme.&nbsp; Evan is a big boy, so he knows when he needs to step in to stop you embarrassing yourself.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Sorry, everyone, I’m afraid Scotland is a bit tired and crabby this morning.&nbsp; Must have had a little too much Irn Bru last night.&nbsp; (<i>Pause while acolytes hold up signs saying “LAUGH NOW”.)</i>&nbsp; Anyway, we have lots to talk about, so let’s ignore their high-pitched whining and get on.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Look around you at this magnificent Olympic park.&nbsp; Isn’t it a splendid example of what we can achieve as a united British people?&nbsp; It doesn’t matter in what corner of these islands you were born, or whether you can afford the outrageous train fares to get here.&nbsp; You still had the honour of paying through your taxes for these splendid facilities, which the people of London and its burgeoning tourist industry will enjoy for decades to come.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />That’s why the warmth of our gratitude, which is a thousand times more valuable than money, will always be radiating outwards from the M25 to wherever it is you people live.&nbsp; But as well as gratitude, there’s glory, with the memory of our Team GB competitors kicking the arse of the world, really sticking it to those bastards in the G20 who said we were just a titchy offshore island with delusions of grandeur.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />But it’s not simply about the winning;&nbsp; it’s about the red, white and blue. &nbsp;Blue is in my blood, so can you imagine how it would feel to have that drained out of our flag?&nbsp; The French would never let me hear the end of it, Obama’s flunkies would simply put the phone down instead of putting me on hold, and Vladimir would taunt me about the flag going pink in the wash.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Think of our connections with each other.&nbsp; The UK is an intricate trap… I mean, tapestry.&nbsp; Look at me:&nbsp; I have West Highland Cameron ancestors, but I’m also the 5<sup>th</sup>&nbsp;cousin of the Queen. The name Cameron may mean “crooked nose”, but my forebears had good enough spin doctors to fix that.&nbsp; They coined the motto “Let Us Unite”, a useful rallying cry in 1707 when the overwhelming mandate of the privileged brought Scotland into England’s embrace.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />We can’t unpick institutions and infrastructure that have grown up together.&nbsp; Can you imagine how Scottish supermarkets would suffer if lorries had to queue for hours at border posts we’d erected for no discernible reason? &nbsp;What about the chaos if Scotland had a different legal system?&nbsp; Or a different tax regime?&nbsp; I don’t know how the Europeans manage, not that that will matter a jot after 2017.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Our prosperity, which from personal experience I can tell you is very real, even though invisible in your own daily lives, depends on sticking together.&nbsp; We have a long term economic plan -&nbsp; no, a vision, though I’m sure George hasn’t done drugs since college -&nbsp; for Britain to be innovating, creating and shovelling the proceeds down our banker pals’ throats until the Sun goes nova.&nbsp; Without access to Scottish resources, George and I could find ourselves getting boiled in oil, in a nice ironic touch, at the next Bilderberg conference. &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Our armed forces?&nbsp; Finest in the world, though Philip Hammond is working on that.&nbsp; Our shipyards?&nbsp; Thanks for taking one for the team there, Portsmouth. &nbsp;But it’s not just about national vanity, although obviously that’s mostly it.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />We’re also the soft-power super-power, a crucible of creativity that produced Emeli Sande, whose CDs the people of Kazakhstan would chuck on a massive bonfire if they discovered she was Scottish and not North British.&nbsp; And what about Sherlock, whom Conan Doyle would have been too poor and stupid to create if the country had just stopped at Hadrian’s Wall?&nbsp; (<i>Is that where the border really is, Tristan?&nbsp; Can someone check before the speech?</i>)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Then there’s the BBC, whose reputation for fairness and impartiality goes without saying.&nbsp; More and more frequently, as it happens.&nbsp; But Aung San Suu Kyi was a fan, so that’s the moral high ground secured against annoying questions. &nbsp;(<i>Tristan, can we leave out the part about her bopping along to the DLT Show</i>?)&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />This is a country where, if we see someone who’s sick, or has lost their job, we don’t just walk on by.&nbsp; We kick them in the nuts, get them evicted from their home and say it’s all their fault.&nbsp; Let’s keep speaking out for these values together, filling the gaps with “la la la” if we must, to shut out any dissenting voices pointing out the immense moral vacuum at their heart.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />We are the pride and hope for the world. &nbsp;Think of the British ships, named after different parts of the UK, sailing to the Falklands to protect the then-popular principle of self-determination.&nbsp; Think of how, in 1964, Nelson Mandela, even though he was at that time a terrorist, delivered a moving speech in court about his respect for British institutions such as Parliament.&nbsp; Can you imagine? Unlike the Jocks, he had no place to air his grievances!&nbsp; Whereas we gave the SNP at least 10 minutes yesterday to make themselves heard above the heckling, and some unelected peers as long as they liked recently to explain why the very idea of independence was pants.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />My favourite book when I was growing up was&nbsp;<i>Our Island Story</i>, which may be sub-titled&nbsp;<i>A Child’s History of England</i>, but also contains several compelling paragraphs about the provinces.&nbsp; I want to give it to my three children so that they, too, can pee their pants with laughter about the gigantic con we’re… I’m sorry, I’ll read that again.&nbsp; Britain is our family home, which we built brick by brick through brave buccaneering belligerent blustering brash brawny brilliance.&nbsp; I couldn’t bear to see it torn apart, and to prevent that I’ll fight with everything I have, except my debating skills.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />So let the message ring out, from Manchester to Motherwell (<i>Tristan, is that where we shut down those steelworks?</i>) , from Pembrokeshire to Perth (<i>shooting and fishing country, we’re on firm ground there</i>), Belfast to (<i>crap, can’t think of anything!&nbsp; Will they notice if I just say Brigadoon?&nbsp; Oh, wait a minute, there’s an earl of…of…where is it?</i>) BUTE, from us to the people of Scotland:&nbsp; we want you to stay!&nbsp; Please please please!&nbsp; Don’t go breaking our hearts!<o:p></o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal">Alternatively, let us have all the oil, then you can bugger off.<br /><br /></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-69352352230710076742014-02-02T16:48:00.000+00:002014-02-02T16:48:27.728+00:00Accentuating The Positive<br /><i>Selected highlights from the Independence Referendum Campaign in January.</i><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal">Alan Cochrane is in a tizz.&nbsp; The bitterness of the independence debate will create fissures in Scottish society for generations to come, says the <i>Daily Telegraph’s</i> Scottish Editor.&nbsp; Or maybe it’s the stand-up comedian with a similar name; &nbsp;I do tend to get the two mixed up. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As Alan sobs gently into his comfort blanket, he should rest assured that kindred spirits are available to offer him a group hug. &nbsp;For January 2014 was the month when several stalwarts of the No campaign, including Alistair Darling, Jim Murphy and up'n'coming Labour starlet Kezia Dugdale, appalled us with fearful stories of “Cybernats” hurling online poison at them from dank bedrooms across the land.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Online abuse is disgraceful, but most would agree that it’s (a) a general problem, by no means specific to the referendum debate, (b) a minority pursuit, (c) present on both sides of the argument, and (d) not masterminded from an underground bunker by Alex Salmond.&nbsp; However, this view proved too nuanced for the <i>Daily Mail</i>, which under its guest editor Senator Joseph McCarthy launched a two-week witch hunt of separatist agitators, even door-stepping a few who’d escaped detection by the elaborate double-bluff of using their real names and not actually saying anything very controversial.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m sure Alistair and his friends would be horrified if this unpleasantness were to distract us from the real debate.&nbsp; So let’s stick with the positive campaign stories of January, such as Alistair’s own heart-warming reconciliation with former neighbour and boss from hell, Gordon Brown.&nbsp; Through boom and bust they’d shared a brotherly bond, until the day Alistair had spoiled it all by giving an update on the economy in the style of Private Fraser from <i>Dad’s Army</i>.&nbsp; Now, with Westminster’s throttle-hold on Scotland at stake, they’d put all the volcanic tantrums and self-serving memoirs behind them and were back in harness.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The <i>rapprochement</i>didn’t extend to appearing in public together, which saved someone the job of ensuring all throwable objects were nailed down.&nbsp; But it did involve Gordon smiling in that peculiar, disconcerting way of his, lavishing praise on Alistair in a speech and even remembering to remove his radio mike before getting in the car.&nbsp; Gordon is now scheduled to disappear for months on end, as usual, and step in to save the day once Alistair’s cocked everything up.&nbsp; Alistair’s views on all of this are not recorded, but he seems to be fluttering his eyelashes quite a bit.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, Labour were busy launching their latest buzz-phrase, “pooling and sharing resources”, or, as the rest of us say, “kicking the Barnett Formula in the nuts”. &nbsp;They also added to the mystery surrounding their classic slogan “a bigger idea than independence”, in a First Minister’s Questions performance by Labour leader Johann Lamont that was extraordinary even by her standards.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In Johann’s words, which Alex Salmond helpfully repeated back to her in case of any mistake, removing Trident, avoiding illegal wars and tackling child poverty are “wee things”.&nbsp; Blimey, you might think, this idea Labour’s got must be <i>really massive</i>. &nbsp;That must be why they didn’t get round to implementing it in 13 years of government.&nbsp; Maybe they’re worried about its gravitational pull causing tidal surges.&nbsp; Or perhaps Johann is just looking at independence through the wrong end of a telescope.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The spate of “love-bombing” promised by Better Together was almost a positive story, but didn’t work out as expected.&nbsp;&nbsp; William Hague marched into Edinburgh to deliver a lecture, long on bombast and short on understanding, that was more of an oaf-bombing.&nbsp; Then on Burns Night John Barrowman didn’t show a great deal of love, but certainly bombed, punctuating a bizarre Immortal Memory with elephantine asides calling Alex Salmond a pudding.&nbsp; About his jacket it’s kindest to say nothing, except that the day’s statistics for self-inflicted eye injuries must have been somewhat alarming.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Elsewhere on the explosives front, a stink bomb went off at BBC Scotland, as the University of the West of Scotland released a report demonstrating bias in their referendum news coverage in favour of the No campaign.&nbsp; Everyone assumed it was part of the university’s “Bleedin’ Obvious” series of reports, a successor to the ground-breaking “Cows Go Moo” and “Ye Canny Shove Yer Granny Aff A Bus”.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The BBC certainly seemed to assume it wasn’t news, since they didn’t report it.&nbsp; Instead, in a letter sneakily copied to his boss, they demanded that the author, Dr John Robertson, show them his workings, so that a middle manager with no relevant academic qualifications could “evaluate” them.&nbsp; “Heroic Apparatchik Debunks Hate Report Using Plain Common Sense” -&nbsp; now <i>that’s</i>news!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Another notable publication during January was Jim Sillars’ alternative vision for Scotland, in <i>Place Of Fear II.&nbsp; </i>Its title’s a nifty homage to Nye Bevan, it’s downloadable to your Kindle and, at a sixth of the length of the White Paper, you can read it in an afternoon without your head exploding.&nbsp; Its release coincided with Jim’s appearance on <i>BBC Question Time</i>from Dundee, where his natural authority never lost its grip on the audience’s attention, even when he strayed off topic into a lengthy reflection on quantitative easing, while David Dimbleby shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, steam gently hissing out of his ears.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Jim doesn’t agree with the SNP on a number of things, including a sterling currency union, so he may have had a beady eye on Mark Carney’s “technocratic” outline of how to operate one. &nbsp;The BBC marked this key moment in the campaign by switching into “gloating in advance” mode.&nbsp; Would Salmond be handed his chosen currency option in a bin bag, or be given a dustpan and brush and ordered to sweep up the mess himself?&nbsp; What would “Ye cannae dae it” sound like in a Canadian accent?&nbsp; The occupants of Downing Street gathered round the telly with beers and Cheesy Wotsits in anticipation of a rout.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Instead, what we got was a scrupulously even-handed, non-judgmental analysis, a master-class in tightrope-walking over a minefield with a nuclear warhead strapped to one’s back. &nbsp;The subsequent press conference re-enacted the story of Robert the Bruce and the spider, but with an alternative outcome, as time after time James Naughtie and his colleagues tried to put words in Carney’s mouth, only to be gently encouraged to sod off and get a life. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“The idea of a currency union is now normal, not risky or outlandish,” we thought, until we read the brain-shredding spin in the newspapers the following morning and realised we’d been visiting a parallel universe. &nbsp;It seems that if you can’t pin a damaging quote on someone, you declare it’s what he didn’t say that matters.&nbsp; As he left Edinburgh, Carney’s parting words had been, “It’s over, it’s over.”&nbsp; But it never is. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the universe inhabited by Better Together, not so much parallel as accessed by falling down a rabbit hole, it was as if someone had flicked a magic switch.&nbsp; “Goodbye to the pound,” screamed their new leaflet, aimed at commuters on the basis that one must always have something sensational to read on the train.&nbsp; It’s unclear whether they really printed the 500,000 copies they claimed, or someone in the press office had fat-finger syndrome.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Never mind, though, I’m sure there are many uses to which squillions of unread leaflets can be put.&nbsp; We could even knit a few together and make a nice new comfort blanket for Alan Cochrane.&nbsp; I’m positive his old one’s getting a bit worn.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-29806410510365462712014-01-29T19:23:00.004+00:002014-01-29T19:57:31.062+00:00UKIP If You Want To<br /><div class="MsoNormal">As Walter Mitty characters go, no-one lives the dream quite like Nigel Farage.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">His party has never won a Westminster parliamentary seat and he’s personally never polled higher than third place, yet he’s goaded squeaky-bum Tories into UKIP tribute band mode, cranking up the xenophobia.&nbsp; On TV, his atrocious grasp of detail allows even Andrew Neil to use him as a chew toy, but it’s still news editors, not comedy producers, who have him on speed-dial.&nbsp; When barracked by an irascible Edinburgh mob, he’s able to summon his uncanny powers of pub detection to escape them, and the polis even give him a taxi ride home.&nbsp; Burping contentedly, no doubt, at his charmed life.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Still, when a jammy fourth place in the Cowdenbeath by-election is comfortably the high point of the party’s week, it’s time to wonder whether the Farage carriage is reverting to a pumpkin. &nbsp;UKIP’s lately been encountering increasingly stormy weather, which is what happens when you disobey God by being a bunch of hateful bigots.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Hang on, fair-minded readers will protest, surely there’s more to UKIP than simply yelling about the EU, foreigners and whatever sub-section of the population has disgusted them this week? &nbsp;Sorry, folks, we’ve just discovered there isn’t.&nbsp; It turns out Nigel can’t remember a word of what was in their 2010 manifesto, although he does recall it was written by an “idiot”. But that’s OK, because he’s completely disowned it anyway.&nbsp; (Bet Nick Clegg wishes he’d thought of that one.)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Amnesia is an essential defence mechanism for Nigel.&nbsp; How else could he witness his colleagues’ constant horrendous gaffes without waking up in a cold sweat to find he’s eaten half his pillow?&nbsp; But, even if he’s truly blanked out the manifesto’s contents, it’s a teensy bit weird that he managed to put his name to its foreword without spotting at the time that the whole document was drivel.&nbsp; Surely he’d have noticed little clues here and there, such as the cover being decorated with glitter and a picture of a pony, or the N and S of “MANIFESTO” being written the wrong way round. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Could it be that Nigel – and, mind, I’m not implying this was after a few pints - just scribbled down whatever popped into his head for the foreword, without actually reading the manifesto?&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;It’s a daring time-saving strategy, to be sure, but it does lead to dodgy results.&nbsp; Can you imagine if it were standard practice?&nbsp; “Jeffrey Archer’s elaborate word-pictures sparkle with literary virtuosity.”&nbsp; “<i>Oedipus Rex</i>:&nbsp; the perfect Mother’s Day gift.”&nbsp; “The New Testament is packed with handy tips on carpentry and wine-making.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Nigel may not have known what was in the 2010 manifesto, but he certainly knew where to find it, since no sooner had he confessed his ignorance than it was deleted from the UKIP web site.&nbsp; That’s a shame, for it contained some charming ideas, such as painting trains in jolly colours. &nbsp;Wouldn’t that be a huge tonic for jaded commuters?&nbsp; Who’d give a monkey’s about overcrowding, tardiness or outrageous fares if the front carriage were done up to look like Thomas the Tank Engine?&nbsp; Let’s stick to primary colours, though.&nbsp; Once you begin mixing shades, you never know what sort of beastliness will follow.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The 2015 UKIP manifesto isn’t yet written, folks, so it’s up for grabs.&nbsp; There’s a lifetime subscription to the <i>Daily Mail</i> to be won.&nbsp; Stop barking at the moon, put on your tinfoil hat, dig out a felt pen and stick your suggestions on a postcard!&nbsp; (Please keep polysyllables to a minimum. Use nuance only when making snarky comments about homosexuals. Entries postmarked “Bongo Bongo Land” will be disqualified.)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s still time for UKIP to get their ideas sorted out.&nbsp; They don’t need coherent policies for the coming Euro elections, since all UKIP MEPs ever do is pick up their humungous expenses and hurl abuse at Herman van Rompuy. &nbsp;Most MEPs manage only the first part, so that’s pretty impressive productivity.&nbsp; Sadly, however, the plooks erupting on UKIP’s puss go beyond lack of policies. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The party’s Scottish branch, which once startled everyone merely by existing, is now providing a rollicking adjunct to the pantomime season by hilariously falling apart.&nbsp; One senior figure’s been sacked by e-mail, another’s flounced off in sympathy and a third is currently dynamiting himself through Twitter misbehaviour.&nbsp; Six Euro election candidates have already jumped ship, and it’s rumoured that the other three are waving at passing UFOs to see if they can hitch a lift with the aliens.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, Scotland is expendable for Nigel, since UKIP is about as popular here as anthrax, and its name may well make no sense after 18 September.&nbsp; But there’s also plenty to fret about in England, where Godfrey Bloom’s potty mouth eternally lurks, and you have to keep watch for councillors talking to the hatstand, thinking it’s God. &nbsp;Of professionalism and “good, solid people” there is not a sign. &nbsp;Is UKIP attracting the wrong sort of candidate, wonders Nigel? &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">No, Nigel, it isn’t.&nbsp; It’s attracting exactly the right sort of candidate.&nbsp; If we’re going to have deranged numpties entering politics, it’s far better for them to join an unelectable shower of half-wits than winkle their way into one of the mainstream parties and accidentally get near the levers of power.&nbsp; Our existing political classes give us enough bother as it is without an extra layer of homophobia, bigotry and racism shovelled on top.&nbsp; I could go into more detail, but you’d probably forget it, so I’ll keep it broad-brush.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Sorry if that seems a bit harsh. &nbsp;As an olive branch, remember you’re always welcome to make your home in the new flourishing Scotland once you’re a busted flush in politics.&nbsp; We’d need to avoid disturbances on the streets, obviously, but we have plenty of uninhabited islands where we’d be quite happy for you to be king.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal">In your Walter Mitty dreams, anyway. &nbsp;&nbsp;<o:p></o:p><br /><br /></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-50382399186949348982014-01-25T11:19:00.000+00:002014-01-26T20:48:38.540+00:00To A Grouse (Epistle to Alistair Darling)<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Happy birthday, Robert Burns, 255 years young!</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b>TO A GROUSE</b><br /><i><b>(On Him Turning Up In Newspapers Everywhere, Whining)</b></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Wee, sleekit, glowerin’, troublous Darling,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">O what a panic’s set thee snarling!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thy bare-faced claims we can’t use sterling<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Dinna convince.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The imprecations thou keep’st hurling<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Are full o’ mince.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I ken wherefore thou art sae crabbit,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thy fizzog like a startled rabbit,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thy point of view sae parched and scabbit,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thine aspect grim.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Faith! Thou maun earn a handsome habit<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Wi’ ermine trim.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I doubt na but thy denigration<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">O’ Scotia’s self-determination<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Is based on wild imagination,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Or pauchlin’ lies!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Such mischief bears its indication<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">In blinkin’ eyes.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thy Project Fear has fallen tae ruin!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The Cybernats gave it a doin’,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Noo all deride its idle spewin’<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">O’ stories strange,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">And bold September’s wind’s ensuin’:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">The wind o’ change!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thou saw Carmichael, bare and wast,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">And moothy Sarwar, speakin’ fast,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">And Michael Moore, in ancient past,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">For mercy plead,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">By Nicola’s scything wit outclassed<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">And left for deid.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">O Grand Panjandrum o’ Finance,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Wha reads White Papers at a glance,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Whose style o’ banking governance<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Was fair found wantin’,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">It’s nae surprise we look askance<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">At a’ thy rantin’!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Gowk, thou maun learn the lesson plain:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thy negativity is vain,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Awa’ back hame and think again,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Thy scheme’s agley.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">An’ nought remains but grief and pain<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">On voting day!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">How drab thy lot, compared wi’ me!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">Westminster only toucheth thee,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">And, as I backward cast my e’e,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">It turns tae dust,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">While forward, though I canna see,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">I hope and trust!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>******************************</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><b><u>Author's Note:</u> &nbsp;</b></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>In the spirit of "I am Spartacus", I hereby embrace the term <b>"Cybernat" </b>in the neutral sense of "supporter of Independence who comments and debates online".&nbsp;</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>Recent use of it by politicians and the Daily Mail to tar ordinary Independence supporters with the same brush as online abusers and bullies is <b><u>outrageous</u>,</b> and can't be allowed to stand unchallenged. Online abuse and bullying is to be unreservedly condemned and must be stamped out - but it exists on both sides of this debate and, alas, many others. &nbsp;</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i>If you're abused, that's dreadful, but there are laws to protect you and you should report it to the police. Don't attempt to hijack the moral high ground; &nbsp;it's not clever, it's not pretty and it's very, very tedious.</i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><br /></i></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-62327892773719601322014-01-21T18:17:00.000+00:002014-01-21T18:17:35.536+00:00Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word<br /><div class="MsoNormal">So the door of the windowless room is firmly locked from the outside, the water level is inexorably rising and a couple of sharks are circling ominously.&nbsp; How will the Lib Dems get out of this one?&nbsp; It’s a sad, sad situation, and it’s getting more and more absurd, but this time a Nick Clegg style charity single ain’t gonna cut it.&nbsp; Especially when half of the potential performers are trying to throttle the other half in an argument over who should be saying “Sorry”.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">With just one MP sent to jail and one sex scandal during this Parliament, you could say it’s been a tame few years for the Lib Dems. &nbsp;But the absence of lurid headlines isn’t much consolation when your collective soul’s gone AWOL.&nbsp; It speaks volumes that what’s sparking fireworks amongst Lib Dems isn’t their gutless complicity in a merciless onslaught on the poor by a pitiless elite.&nbsp; Nor is it the fact that the only way to make an honest document of their 2010 manifesto is by rewriting each sentence to mean its precise opposite.&nbsp; No, they’re fine with all of that, but when it comes to arguing about what level of serial sexual harassment is appropriate for a party big-wig, they’re like ferrets in a sack.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The House of Lords doesn’t do High Noon, because these expenses-claim lunches won’t eat themselves.&nbsp; So Monday’s showdown was scheduled for 2.30 pm.&nbsp; That was when, to the background accompaniment of his charity single “The Oldest Swinger In Town”, the triumphantly returning Lord Rennard was due to be winched into his appointed bench, with half of his colleagues strewing rose petals underneath him while the other half sat with steam whistling out of their ears.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Then, at 2.29 pm, pandemonium!&nbsp; A press release, cobbled together by a Lib Dem committee none of us knew existed, came whizzing across cyberspace. &nbsp;Lord Rennard’s party membership, it announced, had been suspended while he was investigated for not apologising for the wrongdoing their previous investigation hadn’t been able to prove.&nbsp; They wanted his party badge back, but he could keep the coloured pencils and bumper stickers.&nbsp; (This last concession was largely drowned out by lawyers across London popping champagne corks.)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Lord Rennard could still have come to the House if he’d wanted, although he might have had to bring his own folding chair if he intended to sit.&nbsp; But there was a crowd of photographers at his door, all set to re-enact a chase sequence on the <i>Benny Hill Show</i>, which would raise the alarming prospect of becoming the first life peer to go viral on <i>YouTube.&nbsp; </i>Anyway, he was indisposed, having barely the strength to compose a 2,256-word self-exculpatory press release of his own.&nbsp; So we were denied our promised <i>coup de théâtre</i>, although, on the positive side, the bricks that would otherwise have been hurled through TV screens can now be used to build affordable housing.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Seriously, though, why can’t the Lib Dems just get a grip? &nbsp;In the real world, disciplinary procedures don’t faff around with “beyond reasonable doubt”, or hastily-arranged investigations to buy time before the next embarrassment engulfs you.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We don’t know exactly what this guy did, because the behaviour of which he’s accused happens in secret, rather than with a tannoy blaring “Uninvited frottage taking place in Room 94”.&nbsp; And you do have to tread carefully just in case an accusation is malicious.&nbsp; But when you’ve got several women independently affirming they don’t feel comfortable sharing a working space with him without having a can of Mace handy, it should be game over. &nbsp;He doesn’t need sympathy for being misunderstood; &nbsp;he needs a bin bag for his personal effects and a tersely-worded instruction to go and lurk at the Job Centre.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But he’s such a brilliant election strategist, bleat his apologists, launching into a note-perfect rendition of their charity single “Nothing Compares 2U”. &nbsp;Look, chaps, I know you have village idiot competitions to enter, so I’ll keep this brief.&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Firstly, are you really saying that, therefore, his victims should just “take one for the team”?&nbsp; Secondly, there are 2.39 million on the unemployment register, of whom I reckon quite a few could con votes out of a gullible electorate just as readily as Chrissy-boy, without fondling someone’s patella.&nbsp; Thirdly, no election strategy on the planet is going &nbsp;to save the Lib Dems in 2015, unless all 57 of their MPs are discovered trussed up in a warehouse in Newport Pagnell, and it turns out they were impersonated after the last election by malevolent shape-shifters.&nbsp; The Lib Dems don’t need a strategist;&nbsp; they need a taxidermist.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">On that argument, maybe there’s no time like the present for the Lib Dems to destroy themselves in an eruption of mutual loathing. &nbsp;It can’t make their next election result any worse, and perhaps, like a forest fire, it will clear space for fresh growth.&nbsp; New thinkers, bright ideas, a gleaming vision about a middle way for society.&nbsp; Those of us who used to consider them their second-favourite political party, because that was an important component of British life, like saving milk bottle tops for the Blue Peter appeal, might once again be able to smile.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And if they knock on the door asking us to vote for them?&nbsp; No problem, we’ll just whistle a few bars of our new charity single: “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-22273414610465182412014-01-18T10:27:00.001+00:002014-01-18T10:52:24.784+00:00Curry At The Balti Shop<br /><i>Trawling the depths of my back catalogue and coming up mostly with silt. This one comes with apologies to Oscar Hammerstein II, and amateur vocalists can belt it out in the shower to the tune of "The Surrey With The Fringe On Top" from "Oklahoma!" &nbsp;OK?</i><br /><br />When I take you out tonight with me<br />Swanky joints and greasy spoons let’s flee<br />No pub meals or lecherous Italian waiters<br />There’s just one hot spot I wanna see.<br /><br />Your GP had best start to worry<br />When I take you out for a curry<br />When I take you out for a curry at the Balti shop.<br /><br />Shovel in that Madras-style chicken<br />Hear them Geiger counters a-tickin’<br />Grab your throat and yell “What the dickens?”<br />As your eyes go pop.<br /><br />The rice is yeller, the sauces are brown<br />The recipe book’s Bengali<br />Here’s a pint of lager to wash it all down<br />And make you tremendously jolly.<br /><br />One last item each dish to embellish<br />Silver trays of luminous relish<br />Even though the taste may be hellish<br />You won’t want to stop<br />Damping down that little curry from the Balti shop.<br /><br />Burger King’s relentless bonhomie<br />Masks ingredients you'd be shocked to see<br />Chinese food is sickly sweet and insubstantial<br />And the plum sauce makes me want to pee.<br /><br />If you’re lookin’ weak-kneed and scrawny<br />Soupe du jour is Mulligatawny<br />Builds you up till you’re beefy and brawny<br />When you start to flop.<br /><br />Pappadums piled up to the ceiling<br />Vindaloos discreetly congealing<br />Give your heart that warm kinda feeling<br />That it’s hard to top.<br /><br />The waiter glides round as if on wheels<br />Indulging in question and answer<br />“Can I light your candle?” “Enjoying your meal?”<br />“Would you like some Peshwari Nan, sir?”<br /><br />Sag Aloo gets caught interdental<br />Wield that toothpick – mind and be gentle<br />One more pleasure subcontinental<br />That you’d never swap<br />Is the stickiness of curry from the Balti shop.<br /><br />We’ll eschew the haute cuisine of France<br />It pales into insignificance<br />This cuisine is haute enough to melt the icecaps<br />And to make a statue wanna dance.<br /><br />Pubs all shut and in spill the drinkers<br />They are not the world’s greatest thinkers<br />But as multiple lager sinkers<br />They just cream the crop.<br /><br />Three pints down and they’re raucously singing<br />Fights break out and samosas they’re flinging<br />Soon the polis the building are ringing<br />It’s a fair old cop.<br /><br />Even now the delights are not complete<br />And the atmosphere still lingers<br />There’s a cup of coffee and a chocolate sweet<br />That melts all over your fingers.<br /><br />When you’ve had that rich chicken korma<br />You’ll jig about like a circus performa<br />And tonight it’ll be <i>nessun dorma</i><br />Though your eyelids drop<br />You’ll recall that little curry from the Balti shop.<br /><br />William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-58292425251814015072014-01-15T16:37:00.002+00:002014-01-15T16:49:27.624+00:00All Together Now<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal">One of the striking things about the “Better Together” campaign whose positive message over the last few months has so galvanised the Scottish independence debate is how excitingly inclusive it is.&nbsp; It doesn’t matter how ridiculous you are, how anti-democratic, how irrelevant to the debate or how tainted by past failure; you’re still welcome to point out to the Scottish people that we’re uniquely incapable of making our own decisions, and that if we try to do so the entire planet will be torn from its axis and hurled into the void.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Take the grey, cobwebbed figure in a deserted corner of the pavilion at Lord’s that startlingly came to life shortly before Christmas and revealed itself as Sir John Major.&nbsp; Sir John’s affinity with Scotland is such that at the 1997 election he became the only Tory leader in history to preside over the complete obliteration of his party’s representation here.&nbsp; But he did leave sterling out in the rain on Black Wednesday for speculators to rip apart, so currency is kind of his specialist subject.&nbsp; As long as he keeps his clothes on, anyway.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s often hard to be sure of what Sir John is saying, because you’re so busy stabbing yourself with a pencil to stay awake. &nbsp;But the gist of his remarks seemed to be that after voting Yes we could forget about negotiating a sterling currency union with the remainder of the UK.&nbsp; Any of that malarkey and a gang of Phil Mitchell lookalikes would show us off the premises faster than we could say, “Mmm, aren't these knuckledusters delicious?”&nbsp; Thereafter, we’d have to rely on bawbees, pibrochs or Irn Bru bottle tops until being grudgingly permitted to join the Euro in 2099, twenty years after Ruritania.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We had little opportunity to consider what George Soros and his fellow vampires might think of a sterling zone shorn of oil revenues, for within seconds a weedy, knackered-sounding trumpet voluntary announced the arrival of the next uninvited guest.&nbsp; Why, if it wasn’t Mariano Rajoy, Prime Minister of Spain!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When we’d last seen Mariano, he and David Cameron had been engaged in a red-faced, middle-aged shoving match at the head of a seven-mile traffic queue outside Gibraltar.&nbsp; But with a tiny sprinkling of “Better Together” fairy dust, they were now best buddies, standing shoulder to shoulder against slippery secessionists.&nbsp; It’s unclear whether they were in some sort of bromance-related clinch, or simply using each other as glove puppets.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">When Mariano said that a region splitting off from a larger country would “remain outside the EU”, it’s a pretty solid bet he was talking about Catalonia, Spain’s own little pocket of troublemakers.&nbsp; Naturally, having the politician’s usual allergy to unambiguous statements, he didn’t come out with it explicitly, but merely left his words hanging there like a fart in a lift.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, he didn’t have a scooby what would actually happen, since the EU has no mechanism for chucking out entire populations for unacceptable voting choices, but who cares?&nbsp; Better Together simply slapped clothes pegs on their noses and got their pet journalists to disgorge some tripe spinning his statement as a dire warning from the EU to Scotland.&nbsp; One suspects that shortly Dave will issue a reciprocal weasel-worded threat, expertly timed to banjax Barcelona.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Since Scotland’s untimely removal from the EU would result in Spain’s fishermen being kicked out of Scottish waters and his paella having to be made from tofu, I rather think Mariano would be amongst the first to summon us back down from the naughty step.&nbsp; But never mind, it’s great to see that ignorance and guardianship of a tottering economy mired in scandal aren’t barriers to inclusion in the grand Unionist charm offensive.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As 2014 has dawned it’s become apparent that Better Together have significantly ramped up their game.&nbsp; Perhaps they’ve been spending the NoTunes vouchers they got for Christmas.&nbsp; We’re promised that, just as soon as they can identify candidates with the right combination of shamelessness, cashflow problems and fake sincerity, “English celebrities” will be all over the airwaves, telling us how much they adore us and can’t live without us. &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">What toe-curling telly might we expect?&nbsp; Luvvies in “I Heart Scotland” T-shirts getting the words to <i>Auld Lang Syne</i> wrong? &nbsp;Jeremy Paxman introducing <i>Newsnight</i> wearing a Jimmy wig?&nbsp; The cast of <i>Strictly</i> doing a White Heather Club tribute?&nbsp; OR MAYBE THE BBC COULD JUST PRODUCE A WEATHER MAP WITH SCOTLAND THE CORRECT FLAMING SIZE?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This technique is known as “love bombing”, a vaguely pornographic-sounding term often associated with religious brainwashing cults.&nbsp; It worked a treat with the Quebec independence referendum in 1995, something Better Together think we’re too stupid to have noticed.&nbsp; The current retread will also feature “ordinary folk” cold-calling Scottish voters in an initiative called “Blether Together”.&nbsp; (That isn’t satire, folks.)&nbsp; If I were a candid friend, I’d advise against recruiting too many callers from the North of England, in case discussions take an unexpected turn and we end up with the border at Sheffield.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">However, the “marquee signing” of the whole BT campaign is surely the one just announced… oh, all right then, denied by official sources, so obviously true.&nbsp; Step forward Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of Russia, tough-talking tiger-tranquillising macho man, the world’s first authentic super-hero! &nbsp;&nbsp;Yes, he’s a repressive, homophobic thug steeped in the ways of the KGB who doesn’t give a monkey’s about democracy, but protocol demands that we listen politely to him this year, because Russia has the presidency of the G8.&nbsp; What better time to call upon him to stem the shock waves of self-determination currently buggering up the world for bankers and oligarchs?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s easy to imagine Putin striding topless through the heather, the midges bouncing off his leathery skin as he pauses occasionally to wrestle a lion rampant into submission. &nbsp;With him around there’d be no more dissent from musicians:&nbsp; Eddi Reader’s behaviour on <i>Question</i> <i>Time</i>would have to be peh-eh-eh-eh-eh-erfect and the Proclaimers’ proclamations would be limited to weather forecasts for Leith.&nbsp; He’d win appeal, too, as the sort of guy with whom you’d happily share a pint.&nbsp; I mean a single pint;&nbsp; damned if I'd drink anything he offered unless he were drinking it too.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Still, this could all rebound on Better Together if Putin were to stumble across the nuclear base at Faslane and realise that independence will stop the warheads pointing at Moscow.&nbsp; Of course, the missiles are useless and Putin could personally punch each one out of the sky as they fell, but it’s the principle of the thing.&nbsp; And Putin’s probably drunk more toasts to St Andrew and Robert Burns than the whole UK Cabinet put together, so who can be sure he doesn’t harbour a soft spot for Scotland under that adamantine exterior?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But that’s Better Together for you:&nbsp; devil-may-care risk-takers in their anxiety to ensure everyone gets a proper chance to rubbish independence from their all-encompassing tent.&nbsp; It’s a pity they can’t attract the one figure whom voters are actually clamouring to see directly involved in the cut-and-thrust.&nbsp; But Mr Cameron remains forever in the background, steadfastly maintaining his unimpeachable neutrality.&nbsp; On what grounds?&nbsp; Why, that the independence debate is just “for Scots”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Aye, right.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-25726689823632238472014-01-11T20:28:00.000+00:002014-01-11T23:09:25.904+00:00Benefits Street<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">On Benefits Street it’s freak show time,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Observe and salivate<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">As indolence, drugs and petty crime<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Besmirch the Welfare State!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">We don’t cover those who scrimp and save<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">And play it by the rules;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">It’s glittering BAFTAs that we crave,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">D’you think we’re bloody fools?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">No mention for working poor who earn<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">A pittance answering phones;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">You only make headlines if you learn<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">To piss off Owen Jones.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Our cameras shun disabled folk<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Beneath the ATOS heel;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">We’d rather see Twitter up in smoke,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">And hear the lynch mobs squeal.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">So caricatures we’ve put on screen,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Condemned by their own lips<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">As feckless, corrupt, weak-willed, unclean,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">With great shoplifting tips.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">“Community spirit” we profess<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">As central to our tale;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Our cast even boasts a shared address<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">When they’re hauled off to jail.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Though poverty comes in many forms,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">It’s sexier on TV<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">To indicate that the welfare norm’s<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Dysfunctionality.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">When residents whine to Channel Four,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Our answer’s short and sweet:<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Collateral damage we abhor,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">But our CVs look neat!<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">On Benefits Street they’re well pissed off,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">But we’re cool with the flak,<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Protected by rules that let you scoff</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">At those who can’t hit back.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-4761183218061062432014-01-09T13:07:00.000+00:002014-01-09T16:51:17.527+00:00All Quiet On The Westminster Front<br /><div class="MsoNormal">As the members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery sat sharpening their stilettoes yesterday for the first Prime Minister’s Questions of 2014, they must have been acutely aware of the end of an era.&nbsp; Simon Hoggart, prince of Parliamentary sketch writers, passed away last Sunday at the ridiculously young age of 67.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m a huge admirer of Hoggart’s style.&nbsp; I’ve frequently attempted to ape it, typically in my dreams, but even my very best shots have all the flavour of a thrice-used tea-bag. &nbsp;These days, with access to live pictures, news blogs and the Twittersphere, we’ve no excuse for missing a syllable of any debate, but we’ll never appreciate its underlying truths as we did when laughing out loud at his witty, expertly-crafted vignettes.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Hoggart’s House of Commons was stuffed with fascinating characters who lodged themselves in your memory like Tenniel’s <i>Alice In Wonderland</i> illustrations. &nbsp;There was the grandiloquent Sir Peter Tapsell, Father of the House, whose every utterance was handed down amidst awed silence;&nbsp; Michael Fabricant, whose hair defied all attempts to take it seriously;&nbsp; Nicholas Soames, lampooned in a single paragraph as a bouncy castle and a barrage balloon;&nbsp; and, of course, John Major, of whom Hoggart wrote that seeing him govern was “like watching Edward Scissorhands try to make balloon animals”.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">His humour was rarely, if ever, vicious, probably the first test most of us wannabes fail.&nbsp; Its targets were usually happy to be part of the joke, in the classic tradition of Morecambe and Wise’s Christmas victims.&nbsp; Not always, though:&nbsp; John Prescott, never with a chip on his shoulder when a plank is available, may have felt ill-equipped to respond to his verbal shafts, and irritated that their source was a bloke educated in his beloved Hull who’d gone over to the posh side. And there did seem to be lasting antipathy with Tony Benn, whom Hoggart appeared to regard as a national treasure, but of the sort best kept hidden.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So what would Hoggart have made of yesterday’s PMQs?&nbsp; As a fantasy escapade it didn’t quite measure up to <i>Alice In Wonderland</i>.&nbsp; Instead, it had all the rip-roaring excitement of <i>Alice Goes To The Shops For Some Milk</i>.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, no-one was expecting fisticuffs.&nbsp; News had broken of the death of Paul Goggins, a colleague clearly highly regarded on all sides, and MPs’ genuine shock and sadness had put them on their best behaviour.&nbsp; Even so, exchanges were remarkably civilised. &nbsp;If this was the Punch and Judy Show, it was an ‘elf-n-safety approved version played out by sedated nuns, featuring feather dusters for weapons, vegetarian sausages and a crocodile who’d forgotten to put in his false teeth.&nbsp; Had the Speaker gone into the dressing room beforehand to lecture the team captains on playing nice for the cameras?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Ed Miliband’s opening question, on power distributors’ slow response to storm-related blackouts, certainly prompted high-fives from those of us who had “Lessons To Learn” on their “Cameron Buzz-Phrase Bingo” card.&nbsp; But surely Ed would now fillet Dave by bringing up Environment Agency spending cuts?&nbsp; On the Tory front bench, Owen Paterson nervously shuffled his Post-It notes.&nbsp; But no!&nbsp; Instead we got some old mince about asking DEFRA to report on future flood defence capability, which the PM effortlessly rendered harmless by declaring it a jolly good idea.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It took Diane Abbott, summoning her super-power of annoying the hell out of people, to inject some verve into proceedings. What, she enquired, about landlords evicting, or refusing as tenants, housing benefit claimants who were in work? &nbsp;What did the Prime Minister have to say to these hard-working families?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“We’re cutting your taxes!” roared Dave triumphantly.&nbsp; (Well, I’m sure extra disposable income is always welcome if you want to provide your own blankets at the night shelter.)&nbsp; Then, suddenly, the spirit of the <i>Daily Mail</i>, which hovers eternally over the Tory benches, swooped down and took possession of him.&nbsp; “Housing benefit bill far too high!&nbsp; Payments of sixty thousand!&nbsp; Seventy thousand! Housing benefit used to buy yachts!&nbsp; Alabaster bathroom furnishings!”&nbsp; Concerned colleagues dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a Wet Wipe.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But, just as quickly as it had arisen, the passion subsided.&nbsp; Ed returned to his feet and with a confident flourish tore off his velvet glove, only to reveal a tissue-paper fist.&nbsp; He brought up the spread of fixed-odds betting terminals, which Dave pointed out had begun when Labour relaxed gambling laws in 2001.&nbsp; “Our reforms in 2005 limited them to four per betting shop,” bleated Ed, trying desperately to dig in his heels.&nbsp; But he was too close to the edge.&nbsp; “They didn’t go far enough…..” &nbsp;Off he hurtled into the abyss.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The session continued to pootle along in predictable vein.&nbsp; Each time a Labour MP complained about some dreadful state of affairs, the PM referred to his spreadsheet of “Crap that happened between 1997 and 2010”, and told us it was all Labour’s fault.&nbsp; And each time a Tory MP mentioned a local business that hadn’t yet been driven to its knees, the PM endorsed this as evidence that the Government should stick to its plan of making everyone’s life miserable. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">We did make some discoveries. &nbsp;Despite spending cuts forcing the local police to use public transport, crime in Bassetlaw is down by 27%, presumably because the yobs can’t nick panda cars any more.&nbsp; Dave seems to believe in climate change, possibly heralding a permanent drop in the temperature of his relationship with the Environment Secretary. &nbsp;And it seems that Samantha Cameron’s late step-grandmother was a codebreaker at Bletchley Park. Wonder what she would have made of Dave’s current pet phrase “difficult decisions”?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As we checked our watches and looked around for the lady with the choc ices, Scottish Independence came trundling into view, with the SNP’s Angus Robertson inviting Dave to debate with Alex Salmond.&nbsp; A simple “No” would have sufficed, but I’m sure we’re all grateful to Dave for advising us, “It’s all over, the Yes campaign is toast, how can you haggis-munching separatists even get up in the morning, looooo-zers.”&nbsp; I suspect SamCam Gran and her Bletchley Park colleagues would have pretty rapidly decoded that. “I’m feart.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">And so Dave departed, his expensively coiffed hair barely ruffled.&nbsp; We all know what happens to New Year resolutions, so no doubt next week the two party leaders will return to hitting each other with giant frying pans in a febrile atmosphere.&nbsp; The non-combative approach certainly doesn’t work to Labour’s advantage, since it seems to involve Ed using up all his questions on topics such as flower-arranging, but still gives Dave free rein to lambast Labour for all the ills of the world.&nbsp; It might be smart to stop scoring own-goals, too.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As for Simon Hoggart, even during yesterday’s phony war I’m sure he’d have identified several quirky moments to fashion into an entertaining narrative. &nbsp;If you have imagination of that calibre, you can count on it when it matters.&nbsp; Then he’d have padded off to a familiar restaurant for an agreeable lunch.&nbsp; Not quite the same as me slouching off to the kitchen for a Cup-a-Soup and Heinz Ravioli on toast.&nbsp; Still, it gives me something to aspire to, doesn’t it?&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-81105037876869783562014-01-06T21:54:00.001+00:002014-01-06T21:58:47.256+00:00Back To The Grind<div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Isn’t the end of the festive season dismal?&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Wipe that smile off your face, sonny,” says the calendar, as you gloomily unhook the baubles, stuff the lights into their box in a hideous tangle and prepare for another joust with the loft ladder.&nbsp; The logic of getting an artificial tree becomes unanswerable as your natural one, humiliatingly stripped and already anticipating the touch of the bad burny fire, reacts by chucking its needles all over your carpet and inviting your Hoover to have a go if it thinks it’s hard enough.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">If you’ve had guests, the laundry basket is full to the brim with sheets and towels, and your smalls are having to slum it in a bin bag.&nbsp; Cupboards and fridge, seemingly at random, contain none at all of some foods and massive quantities of others. &nbsp;(In our case we have a tremendous surfeit of Weetabix, although if this filthy weather continues it may come in useful as an alternative to sandbags.)<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">You watch <i>Sherlock</i>, recalling its captivating brilliance on New Year’s Day, only to find that while sober you can’t understand what the hell is going on.&nbsp; At Tesco, the “seasonal goods” shelves, lately so alluring, now stand idle pending the arrival of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and World Cup 2014 merchandise.&nbsp; Your true love stops sending you things, and even the five gold rings you liked so much turn out to have been bought at Poundland.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">To add another spoonful of salt to your cuppa, it’s time to go back to work. And you’d better arrive at the station early, to grab a seat before they’re all taken by the 69 million extra Romanians and Bulgarians.&nbsp; And watch out for passengers with brand new iPads who haven’t yet perfected simultaneously juggling them and a hot grande latte.&nbsp; And stand close to a defibrillator when it dawns on you what the new fares are going to be.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Politicians also enjoy their holidays, although it’s invariably a shock to them to have to pay for their own meals for a few days. &nbsp;But the siren call of duty, or trough, or mistress, affects them just as the threat of penury does normal people, so it’s back to the office for them too.&nbsp; This is for the best.&nbsp; A temporary sojourn in the real world is good for MPs, especially Lib Dems who will be searching for a job in 2015, but be honest: &nbsp;wouldn’t you rather have them all in one place where you can keep an eye on them?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">First to set the start-of-year agenda was David Cameron, with his appearance on Sunday’s <i>Andrew Marr Show</i>.&nbsp; Marr’s questions were topical, in the sense that they were as challenging as the easy-to-hit rubbish the news had shown England’s bowlers serving up against Australia.&nbsp; Dave protected his wicket with an assortment of platitudinous drivel, then thwacked the ball to the boundary with an outrageous bribe to pensioners.&nbsp; He said nowt about what would happen to bus passes, or free TV licences, or the winter fuel allowance, or pensionable age, but hey, the Tories have never shafted people in the past, so why would they start now?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Dave made one other pledge amongst the general dross: not to debate with Alex Salmond about Scottish independence.&nbsp; Well, Alex and Dave are hardly comparable as leaders, are they?&nbsp; One of them gets things done via a clear working majority in his Parliament, and the other has to exploit the grotesque spinelessness of his coalition partners. &nbsp;Anyway, Dave’s personal improvement plan for 2014 doesn’t involve having his arse handed to him, especially when there are so many Labour and Lib Dem politicians available to scapegoat if Scotland votes Yes.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It wasn’t long before George Osborne was also manifesting himself all over the place, like the remnants of a paper hanky in a dark wash.&nbsp; Apparently Austerity is not only a consequence of “the mess Labour left” - although obviously it is, with knobs on - but it’s also a bloody good scam, and that’s the hard truth of it!&nbsp;&nbsp; So, after George has cut some more tax for the rich, he’ll begin slashing away at the welfare budget. “George, would that be the welfare budget Dave is going to use for those increased pensions?” we might have asked, had George not been occupied showing off the la-la-can’t-hear-you ear muffs he'd got from Santa.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As we trudge back to our desks, we should remember those who have to work all the way through Christmas – this year, thanks to the weather, in unusually large numbers.&nbsp; If the wind hadn’t already blown off my cap, I’d doff it to each and every one.&nbsp; But it’s all very well giving people practical help.&nbsp; What about bland assurances?&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Fortunately, our political elite were on top of that too, with Dave taking a photo-opportunity in the Kent village of Yalding during a flood and power outage, and being “ambushed” with complaints by a member of the public. “We must learn lessons”, he declared.&nbsp; In this case, presumably, the lesson foremost in his mind was, “Sack the special adviser who allowed me to be cornered by that stroppy local.” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Other Cabinet members also deserve mention for providing Christmas cover. &nbsp;Owen Paterson, for example, brilliantly timed his announcement of 1,550 redundancies at the Environment Agency to coincide with staff working tirelessly round the clock to deal with the various floods.&nbsp; As if that weren’t enough, he followed up 24 hours later with a cunning plan to solve the housing crisis by bulldozing ancient woodland.&nbsp; This latter gaffe had the Woodland Trust spitting rivets, or possibly splinters.&nbsp; You can see how the badgers were able to outwit him.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, Michael Gove, on his own initiative, single-handedly rewrote the history curriculum and the story of broadcasting in one go.&nbsp; Now, we realise, the First World War was a fantastic idea, and we should definitely celebrate it with ubiquitous Union Jacks a month before Scotland votes in its referendum.&nbsp; Oh, and <i>Blackadder</i>wasn’t a documentary, though the presence of Stephen Fry and Tony Robinson might have fooled you on that score.&nbsp; A gold star and prefect’s badge to Michael! <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s fine hearing about politicians getting back to the grindstone, but not so great to realise that we’re the ones receiving the grinding.&nbsp; Still, if this thought adds to your post-Yuletide despondency, remember that things could be worse.&nbsp; In fact, give it a couple of weeks and they will be.&nbsp; Monday 20 January is officially “Blue Monday”, when, experts assure us, it will still be raining, the Christmas shopping credit card debts will fall due and the accumulated stresses of living cheek by jowl throughout the festive period will result in the break-up of your relationship.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">You’ll probably be needing a treat at that time.&nbsp; Maybe you could save some of your Christmas chocolate, so that you can scoff a chunk or two to boost your blood sugar.&nbsp; Or perhaps I could interest you in a tasty, nutritious 96-pack of Weetabix?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-28331436595312782082014-01-04T11:28:00.002+00:002014-01-04T11:28:51.227+00:00The Builders (A Cautionary Tale)<br /><i>So what's your New Year resolution? &nbsp;Maybe it's time you finally got round to building that extension you've been contemplating for years? If so, here's a word of warning you might want to read first. &nbsp;If you're of musical bent, it can be sung to a rather well-known tune by the name of "Those Were the Days".</i><br /><i><br /></i><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Once upon a time we had a kitchen,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Functional but cluttered to extremes,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So we planned a glorious extension<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And wallowed in idealistic dreams.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We got the builders in,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Cement began to spin,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They turned the house a dirty shade of grey,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The garden’s full of skips,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We’re out of PG Tips,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And you should hear the music that they play.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We got the builders in,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That was our greatest sin,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For once they came, they never went away.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5pt;"><br /></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We retreated to an upstairs bedroom,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hoping for some respite from it all,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Till with one blow from his mighty mallet<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pat demolished our supporting wall.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We got more builders in,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They all had double chins<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And ample flesh on permanent display,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They caused a real to-do <o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By bricking up the loo,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then burst a pipe and washed the cat away.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We got more builders in,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our nerves are growing thin,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The population’s growing every day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 5pt;"><br /></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We got settled in a downstairs cupboard,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hoovers and gas meters all around,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then we got a visit from the council<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Telling us they’d judged the place unsound.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We got contractors in<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our house to underpin<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And weigh it down when it began to sway,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So back and forth they passed<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Soon treading down the grass<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And now we own a public right of way.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 6pt 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We’ve got contractors in,</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So pour another gin</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And please don’t ask us why we’ve come to sta</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">y.</span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div align="left" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-26541909645318624682014-01-01T11:39:00.001+00:002014-01-01T12:11:43.742+00:00A New Scotland Is Born<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">A</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">s</span> a special New Year treat, here’s an advance extract from my blog dated 1 January 2064!</span></i><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">(Yes, it’s quite a leap to suggest that in 50 years’ time I’ll still be gabbing on like this, or even that blogging and the Internet will exist in their current form.&nbsp; But, hey, the Institute for Fiscal Studies can predict a black hole for Scotland’s finances 50 years hence without being universally derided as a bunch of scaremongering charlatans, so how’s about cutting me a bit of slack?)<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="background-color: #eeeecc; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.90625px;">As Scotland basks in the glow of last summer’s International Peace Summit in Glasgow, when the nations of the world agreed to lay down arms for ever and cement their friendship by going out to get pished together, our thoughts now turn to the independence 50th anniversary celebrations coming up in September.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Although I’m now just a brain kept artificially alive in a jar, I well remember the excitement and trepidation we all felt as the bells rang for New Year 2014. &nbsp;Little did we suspect how momentous the events of that year would turn out to be!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The first unusual turn came during a <i>Newsnight Scotland</i> broadcast late in January. &nbsp;Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael was sounding off about a General Medical Council prediction that, sadly, the population of an independent Scotland would fall victim to a plague of boils.&nbsp; Suddenly, breaking off with an anguished cry of “God help me, I can’t go on spouting this guff a second longer!”, he ripped off his microphone, leapt to his feet, bounded over to the studio window and leapt out.&nbsp; Fortunately, his fall was broken by a large pile of manure, which had just been delivered to the BBC to form the basis of the following day’s news bulletins.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Carmichael’s career might have ended there, except that no potential candidate to replace him could stand the prospect of being duffed up in a debate with Nicola Sturgeon.&nbsp; So he was packed off to Harley Street for repairs.&nbsp; Following his return, he was invariably flanked at public appearances by engineers carrying screwdrivers and WD40, and his voice took on a raspy tone best described as “Dalek”.&nbsp; The Scottish press complimented him on his new robust approach, and declared his frequent outbursts of “Exterminate!” to be a neat sound-bite summing up the positive case for the Union.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was at about this time that Alex Salmond discovered the cure for cancer.&nbsp; This was a low point for the “Yes” campaign, as their opponents made hay with potential job losses in NHS oncology departments and the pensions black hole created by people living longer.&nbsp; Anyway, scoffed the <i>Scotsman</i>, what use was a cancer cure when the real threat was obviously a plague of boils?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The 16 weeks leading up to the referendum constituted a formal campaign period, when the BBC was bound to observe strict impartiality.&nbsp; As the subsequent public enquiry established, they did try ever so hard, but staff shortages over the summer holidays contributed to a number of regrettable errors.&nbsp; These included the addition of a laughter track to “Yes” campaign broadcasts, a keynote speech by Nicola Sturgeon being interrupted by extended live coverage of Prince George’s first birthday party, and the broadcast of a previously unseen edition of <i>Balamory</i>, where the village bank is held up by a robber in a Salmond mask.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Four weeks before the vote, the “No” camp finally came up with its killer campaign document, fully setting out its position.&nbsp; It was a tarpaulin draped over the Forth Rail Bridge, spray-painted with the words “WE CANNAE DAE IT”.&nbsp; The <i>Herald</i> called it “a masterstroke” and the <i>Telegraph</i> described it as “a comprehensive rebuttal of Alex Salmond’s vanity project.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One week before polling day came the campaign’s most sensational development.&nbsp; Alistair Darling, who’d been going steadily downhill since the launch of the White Paper, when he’d blown a fuse by attempting to speed-read all 670 pages in 30 seconds before giving his reaction on TV, finally snapped. &nbsp;When a punter at a public meeting asked him about the consequences of a “No” vote, the accumulated cognitive dissonance of several months spilled out of his head and randomly formed itself into an honest answer.&nbsp; “The bagpipes, kilts and the Saltire will be banned and the Duke of Cumberland will be installed as viceroy of Scotland in perpetuity.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The press blamed a “mole” amongst Darling’s special advisers for providing a fake briefing, but the game was up.&nbsp; He was blackballed from gentleman’s clubs in London and Edinburgh, the House of Lords seat reserved for him was destroyed in a controlled explosion and he had to flee the country dressed in a burqa.&nbsp; As we all know, he subsequently rebuilt his life and found fame in Hollywood, where his facial tics and paranoia were put to good use in Pink Panther remakes, as Clouseau’s tortured boss Inspector Dreyfus.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Apart from voters streaming in steadily, &nbsp;referendum day itself was unexceptional until five minutes before polls closed, when a fleet of Royal Mail vans suddenly appeared, carrying half a million postal votes, all mysteriously postmarked “Brigadoon” and voting No. &nbsp;All, it transpired, except for the very last, where the voter had unaccountably failed to tick the “No” box but had instead scrawled beside it, somewhat mechanically, the single word “Exterminate”.&nbsp; The ballot paper was declared void and - yikes! - that made the referendum a dead heat.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The UK Establishment always knows the right thing to do at such times.&nbsp; A civil servant produced some Tipp-Ex and drafted an amendment to the Edinburgh Agreement, stating that in the event of a draw Her Majesty the Queen would have the casting vote.&nbsp; Immediately David Cameron, accompanied by as many lickspittles and poltroons as he could find, set off in a motorcade for Buckingham Palace.&nbsp; “Cameron’s midnight dash to save civilisation,” cooed the <i>Dundee Courier</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There followed the scene that appears in every child’s history book.&nbsp; Cameron and his parcel of rogues strode into the Palace, gold-edged ballot parchment in hand, only to find Salmond and Sturgeon already there, sipping tea with Her Majesty.&nbsp; It turned out that Nicola had cornered HMQ several weeks previously at one of her garden parties and swung her round to the idea of independence.&nbsp; She’d even helped her choose how she’d like to appear on the new stamps.&nbsp; Quite a charmer, that Nicola.&nbsp; Cheeky wee besom, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And so Scotland began to write its own history.&nbsp; And, though we were still unaware of it, so much excitement was still to come.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">London declaring its own independence in 2017, commencing its journey to the military dictatorship we know today, ruled over by a dynasty of increasingly loopy Johnsons. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The smooth absorption of Britain’s entire land mass outside the M25 into Greater Scotland, and the establishment of the Scottish Pound as the world’s reserve currency following the collapse of sterling and the US Dollar.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The discovery that a combination of midge bites, gale force winds and drizzle is the perfect tonic for the human immune system, leading to the Scottish tourism boom of the 2030s and the Ardnamurchan Lido becoming the world’s prime holiday destination.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Catalonia achieving its own independence in 2016 and its football team winning every World Cup since then.&nbsp; Of course, to commemorate our respective independence struggles, they insist on playing Scotland in a friendly every year and handing out the most embarrassing gubbing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">What a future, eh, folks?&nbsp; Of course, it’s only one of a number of alternative timelines, so the precise facts may diverge ever so slightly.&nbsp; But if you hear that Carmichael is being lined up to talk a load of boils on Newsnight, it will be well worth watching.&nbsp; However, if you can't watch it live, I’d set the video if I were you.&nbsp; I doubt if the BBC will put it on iPlayer.</span></i><o:p></o:p><br /><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-55157019513417718252013-12-29T20:33:00.000+00:002013-12-30T18:04:43.004+00:002013 Review In Verse<b><br /></b><b>January</b> started mild, but halfway through got chilly,<br />The Fiscal Cliff was body-swerved and HMV went bust,<br />Supermarkets stocked new flavours: Stallion and Filly,<br />Rail fares beat inflation as hard-pressed commuters cussed,<br />The PM prayed an EU in-out vote would have appeal,<br />And Michael Winner scoffed, alas, his final rhyming meal. <br /><br /><b>February</b> brought a sliding UK credit rating,<br />A fatal shot saw Oscar spot-lit in the media glare,<br />The Pope defied the history books and quit Pontificating,<br />A court decided working free for Poundland wasn’t fair,<br />A hump-backed king was disinterred, they waived his parking fees,<br />And Richard Briers’ Good Life slipped away into the breeze. <br /><br /><b>March</b> maintained an icy grip, and Spring could not get started,<br />Nervous Cypriot savers eyed the bailout plans with gloom,<br />Huhne and Pryce, each other’s eyes scratched out, to jail departed,<br />HS2, now green-lit, threatened many a Bucks front room,<br />The new Pope went home on the bus, as passengers just stared,<br />And Hugo Chavez met his end, not that the US cared. <br /><br /><b>April</b> was the cruellest month, with grimness that surpasses,<br />A Dhaka sweat-shop fell, with hundreds killed – did we feel shame?<br />The Boston bomber manhunt was a thrill-fest for the masses,<br />Unlike Kim Jong Un’s shrill, pathetic sabre-rattling game,<br />The Bedroom Tax unleashed its blight on those of slender means,<br />As images of Lady Thatcher filled our TV screens. <br /><br /><b>May</b> saw murderers in Woolwich, cowardly and callous,<br />Some useless bomb detectors put a fraudster in the clink,<br />Fergie left a vacancy that’s now a poisoned chalice,<br />UKIP snatched some council seats, so Nigel had a drink,<br />Sally Bercow’s Twitter blooper cost her £15K,<br />And Mick McManus, wrestling’s panto villain, passed away. <br /><br /><b>June</b> gave us a gentle hint Big Brother’s on our cases,<br />As Edward Snowden skipped to Russia with a memory stick,<br />US drones kept killing people of less favoured races,<br />Nigella’s husband – who’d have guessed? – turned out to be a prick,<br />The G8 was a waste of time, to no-one’s great surprise,<br />And Iain Banks was torn from us, with no time for goodbyes. <br /><br /><b>July,</b> by George! A Royal hoo-hah! The third-in-line delivered!<br />Gooey Windsor-watchers hardly noticed Morsi’s fall,<br />Same-sex marriage passed at Westminster, as bigots shivered,<br />But Murray’s win at Wimbledon was what inspired us all.<br />Salmond waved a cheeky Saltire, photo-bombing Dave,<br />And Alan Whicker went to travel worlds beyond the grave. <br /><br />In <b>August</b> sarin gas in Syria set the war drums booming,<br />Dave said “We’re with you, Barack”, but MPs said “Like hell!”<br />A half-arsed badger cull soon brought humiliation looming,<br />Chelsea (once called Bradley) got acquainted with her cell,<br />Two silly weans were caught red-handed smuggling in Peru,<br />And David Frost, who’d subtly skewered Nixon, slipped from view. <br /><br /><b>September</b> bore the hallmarks of the party conference season,<br />Ed declared “We’ll freeze your bills” and copped a lot of flak,<br />A Tory blogger scuffled with an old man for no reason,<br />Godfrey Bloom called UKIP women “sluts”, then got the sack,<br />While, in the real world, terrorists attacked a shopping mall,<br />And David Jacobs, Juke Box Jury’s voice, got Heaven’s call. <br /><br /><b>October</b> featured Grangemouth under threat, a prospect chilling,<br />“Big Business 1, The Unions 0” was how they framed the deal.<br />Postman Pat was parcelled out and traders made a killing,<br />The US seized up for a while, but finally got real,<br />The Nobel Prize Committee garlanded Professor Higgs,<br />And Paradise became the brand new stage for Lou Reed’s gigs. <br /><br /><b>November</b> saw the Philippines face Haiyan’s devastation,<br />Portsmouth got the chop, with Govan (just for now?) preferred,<br />The SNP’s White Paper launched, the blueprint for a nation,<br />The “No” camp slagged it off before they’d even read a word,<br />A helicopter crash in Glasgow left us horrified,<br />And John Cole, former scourge of slimy truth-avoiders, died. <br /><br /><b>December</b> cooked up tempests, floods and Christmas without lighting<br />The “Nephew of the Year” award eluded Kim Jong Un,<br />A falling ceiling made a theatre trip just too exciting<br />&nbsp;Nigella’s court appearance wasn’t altogether fun,<br />And some who once yelled “Hang him high!” now queued up in a rush<br />To eulogise Mandela, and they didn’t even blush. <br /><br />Now <b>2014’s</b> in the wings, about to show its face,<br />It promises a raft of thrills and spills – just watch this space! <br /><br /><br />William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-14536023202550781612013-12-24T22:00:00.001+00:002013-12-24T23:55:28.799+00:00Charity Begins 500 Miles Down The Road<p>“May the wind be always at your back,” say the Irish, usually after they’ve poured you enough pints of Guinness for you to need it, because you can’t feel your legs any more. It’s a generous thought, but as I sped up the East Coast Main Line yesterday, hoping that I’d snuck on to a sufficiently early train, I could have done with the wind being a few hundred miles further back. This filthy sky, horizontal rain and howling gale business is getting to be a habit. Just as well I don’t believe in climate change, or I’d be getting worried.* <p>My four-day trip to London at the weekend wasn’t a nostalgia-fest, although it was good to see old friends and discover that they were getting on fine, thanks, without my captivating wit and sloshed bonhomie. Nor was it a Christmas shopping trip, although a cock-up on the organisational front did necessitate one excursion to Ealing Broadway, where in a fiendish squall and a heaving crowd my high point was dropping some cheese in a puddle while trying to avoid trampling a child. (By the way, memo to W H Smith: (1) I do not want any flaming Dairy Milk, (2) Turn on the lights in your stores, they’re like funeral parlours, and (3) Get rid of that infernal Strauss waltz tape-loop constantly repeating next to the e-reader display, before I snap and <b>REDACTED ON LEGAL ADVICE</b> with a chainsaw.) <p>No, I came down to London for the carol singing in Trafalgar Square. Each year, when the big spruce tree goes up, the Greater London Authority offers 50 hour-long slots, first come first served, to bands of singers keen to wow an admiring crowd with their unique spin on the Christmas classics and pass the hat round in support of their chosen charity. The group with which I’m involved comes from the two London-based Churches of Scotland, Crown Court and St Columba’s, and skates enticingly on the edge of musicality in support of Christian Aid. Other charities and causes are available, and they all do fantastic work; this particular set-up just happens to be the one that floats my boat. <p>I’ve been part of the Trafalgar Square gig for about 20 years now, the last 15 or so as front man. This means that I don’t sing, itself a huge positive on humanitarian grounds, but I do get to chat up the audience between numbers and persuade them to part with their hard or soft cash. I’ve been drowned out by police sirens, had rubbish collectors empty bins right in front of me as I rabbited on, been repeatedly mistaken for a “vicar” and of course built up a tremendous library of responses to hecklers. Some of which I’ve been able to think up as little as five hours after the actual heckle. <p>Even the increasingly duff British weather has smiled on us over the years. Rain and wind have had as much impact as a North Korean defence lawyer. It’s always cold, but we merely smile rigidly and look forward to the post-event party, when we can chisel the ice off our body parts straight into our gins. The only outright “abort” was last year, and that wasn’t down to the elements. It was a flash-mob of Santas taking part in “Santacon”, which if you Google it you’ll find is a highly informal red-costumed festival of goodwill and drinking, theoretically in that order. Trafalgar Square was their rendezvous, arranged online at the last minute, and they weren’t budging. <p>When we arrived in the Square it was a mass of bobbing red. There were Santas everywhere, like confetti in a newly-wed’s undies: frolicking in and on the fountains, dough-nutting Nelson, planning a mountaineering attempt on the fourth plinth and - of course - boogying energetically around the Christmas tree, exactly where we were supposed to sing. They were boisterous and far from nasty. Several of them offered me a drink, presumably because I looked so glum. So there was no doubt they were invoking the spirit of Christmas, but unfortunately it was the 40% proof type, and not the bit marked “Hey guys, let’s sing about Jesus now.” <p>It was bleedin’ obvious this red sea would not be parted, either by divine intervention or by the Met Police. The sole representative of that organisation radioed for reinforcements and was advised, in broad terms, that they might consider popping along when they’d finished their tea and buns. The GLA’s sound and lighting man, who’d provided his own personal equipment, and whose face had gone a vaguely spearmint hue as if he’d consumed an iffy prawn, opined that maybe we should call the whole thing off to prevent damage. I pretended to hum and haw, putting off the actual admission of defeat for as long as possible. <p>It was at this moment that one of our slower-on the-uptake members prodded me and asked for a carol sheet. He owes his life to the presence of that Met officer. She may have been the short arm of the law when it came to riot control, but she could have taken me out in a flash if she’d spotted me doing a Saatchi throat-shake. <p>Anyhow, we regarded our return to Trafalgar Square this year as coming under the heading of “unfinished business”. The GLA, for their part, had decided that this year it would be “back to basics”: no stage, no lighting, no amplification provided. Was this a reaction to last year’s Little Saint Nick invasion? Had the sound engineer taken his toys home? Or was it the latest manifestation of Austerity Britain? Who cares? It didn’t matter. Someone stuck a rinky-dink little megaphone in my hand, I waffled, the singers warbled, the crowd gathered round, and it was like moving from a concert in a stadium to “Unplugged” in a wee room. The punters were generous, and our arms became unfeasibly stretched as we returned the groaning buckets to base afterwards. <p>That’s what I want to highlight here: it’s getting harder and harder to raise money for charity. The rules and regulations get tougher, the co-operation of the authorities slackens off, you’re constantly having to do more with less, you’re wiped off stage by an impromptu piss-up. Sometimes you feel it would be simpler and smarter just to support your valued cause through organised crime. <p>But, whatever the obstacles - <i>despite</i> the obstacles - many, many people still do whatever it takes to raise money for all manner of causes, and, even though they’re feeling the pinch, the great British public still come through with the dosh. This is something truly worth celebrating. <p>Hardened cynic that I am, I feel that the bastards currently running the planet are only too aware of this widespread altruism, and quite delighted to exploit it. For example, there’s a rant about food banks just waiting to be projectile-vomited all over a future blog post. At this stage, let me simply say that I applaud the people who volunteer to help in them, those who organise, and those who provide. They see a need and, between them, they work flat out to fill it. They’d rather this didn’t have to happen, but they hold their noses and get on with it. <p>But what of politicians who see food banks as a policy option, who visit them in pursuit of smiley photo-opportunities, who squeal with indignation (guess who?) when an authoritative source points out in a witty but depressing poster that “Britain Isn’t Eating”? They are beyond words. They deserve to occupy the very lowest circle of Hell, and after this brief break for festivities I trust that all right-thinking people will pursue them without mercy. <p>On which joyous and uplifting note, may I wish all of my readers, old and new, the very happiest of Christmases. I’m off for a wee glass of Irn Bru now, but will return at the weekend with whatever pops into my addled brain between now and then. <p>Sláinte! <p>*<i>If you think I meant it about climate change, please note that irony meters are now available to order online from Russia’s trendiest e-retailer, a reputable business and not in any way a front for identity theft, <b>www.yourenotserious.ru</b>. You’re one click away from having a whole new perspective on humour!</i>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-23240748203882701282013-12-21T16:46:00.000+00:002013-12-21T16:46:59.385+00:00Why Not Buy An Extra Turkey?<p><i>Anyone who’s done time in - I’m sorry, I mean “been actively and enthusiastically involved in” - church choirs over the last 30 years will probably have come across the heartwarming Christmas carol <b>”Why Not Buy An Extra Present?”</b> with music by Mike Sammes and words by Peter Westmore.</i> <p><i>This isn’t it. However, completely coincidentally of course, and with huge apologies to Mr Westmore in particular, it can be sung to the same tune. But it works on its own, without music, as a piece of verse. Well, kind of.</i> <p>Why not buy an extra turkey<br />When you’re planning dinner? <br />Lob it through your neighbours’ window<br />So they get no thinner. <br />Be a lovely person -<br />Help old ladies cross the street,<br />Tip your local dustmen,<br />Give young children lots of sweets.<br />Why not be incredibly pleasant <br />To everybody? <p>Why not welcome carol singers<br />When they serenade you,<br />Even though their tuneless wailing’s<br />Totally dismayed you? <br />Be a lovely person - <br />Clear your path of snow and ice, <br />Smile at sales assistants, <br />Buy their trash at any price. <br />Why not be incredibly pleasant <br />To everybody? <p>Why not greet your long lost cousins <br />With a glad expression? <br />Don’t admit their conversation<br />Leaves you with depression! <br />Be a lovely person - <br />Say their ugly child is cute, <br />Let them smash your teacups, <br />Join in Trivial Pursuit. <br />Why not be incredibly pleasant <br />To everybody? <p>Why not be a Secret Santa <br />At the office party? <br />Give a box of Belgian chocolates, <br />Get a tube of Smarties.<br />Be a lovely person -<br />Send a card to Uncle Fred, <br />Swear this year you’ll visit, <br />Quite forgetting that he’s dead. <br />Why not be obsessively pleasant<br />To everybody? William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-24604586704796579342013-12-20T15:25:00.001+00:002013-12-20T15:29:39.665+00:00The White-Crested Buffoon<p>To the American lady who asked, yes, we do have television in Scotland. Angus the postie has one in his living room and invites the rest of the village round once a week to watch <i>Strictly</i> over porridge and bannocks. We sometimes have to thump the set a few times, and when it’s blowing a gale wee Jamie has to shin up the drainpipe and hug the dish, but we usually arrive at a tolerable black and white picture. <p>Occasionally, when Angus is feeling generous because he’s come across a postal order in the mail, he passes round the Famous Grouse and conversations break out. If it doesn’t all deteriorate into a big punch-up, the TV often stays on until the evening news, and we’re treated to a grainy glimpse of events in the small south eastern enclave where what happens actually matters a damn. It’s here that, surprisingly often, a white-crested buffoon comes galumphing across the screen, typically on a bike creaking under his weight, invariably trailing in his wake the debris of another public relations disaster. Why, look, it’s Boris. <p>Boris. Choreography by Nellie the Elephant, witticisms by Cicero, personality by Teflon, coiffure by Salon Ken Dodd. There aren’t many political figures who can be almost universally identified simply by a given name. “Maggie” can, likewise her idol whom she referred to as “Winston” (but notice the clue I had to shoe-horn in), then maybe there’s “Bibi” over in the Promised Land, and “Saddam” over in the Rogues’ Gallery. I’m sorry, Mr Blair, “Sleazebag” doesn’t count. It’s a perfect fit, but you have too many competitors. <p>Boris. He actually has three given names, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel. “Alexander” means “protector of men”, “Boris” means “warrior” and “de Pfeffel” means “extremely bad choice of letters in <i>Countdown</i>”. He’s emerged from sundry legitimate and clandestine couplings over the centuries as an exotic mixture of Turkish, American, German, Christian, Muslim, Jewish and what Irish commentators refer to as “gobshite”. This has enabled him to survive the standard Eton College process, where they wrench out your soul with massive forceps and upholster the cavity with a wad of superiority, and still have a great deal of his individuality intact. Now he’s a half-toff who plays whiff-whaff but appeals to riff-raff. <p>Boris. The blonde bombshell who once succeeded Michael Heseltine as MP for Henley-on-Thames and whose tub-thumping demagoguery now produces in Tory bosoms the <i>frisson</i> only Hezza could previously stir. At the Glasgow Empire, in its heyday, his rhetorical flourishes would have earned him some succinct travel advice wrapped around a brick. But at party conferences his speeches are the hottest ticket in town, with local entrepreneurs flogging oven gloves to queues of Conservatives stretching as far as the eye can tolerate. <p>What are his ambitions? Under the Tories’ unique equal opportunities scheme, being a clot has never been a barrier to attaining high office, and anyway that unruly mop clearly conceals the zinging about of more than a few neurons. Right now they may be busy composing iambic tetrameters in Ancient Greek, but it would be easy to redeploy them on greasy pole climbing strategies for bulky blokes. <p>BoJo’s no bozo, although he assiduously promotes that fictional impression. Climb all the way up to the attic of his well-appointed townhouse and I bet you’ll find his portrait hidden there, staring out at you with a face set with hard-jawed, flint-eyed ambition and <i>perfectly groomed hair</i>. <p>He is, after all, the only high-profile Tory in charge of something whom the electorate actually meant to put there. In 2012 the non-entity currently chairing his party, a “Grant Shapps”, claimed that Boris lacked many of the necessary skills to lead party or country, a judgment comparable to a chihuahua telling a giraffe it needs a stepladder. Sorry, Grant old bean, but Boris is well capable of putting your assertion to the test, especially since he has in his spin-doctoring corner Lynton Crosby, admittedly no more than the latest poor man’s Karl Rove to infest British political life, but nevertheless Australian and so militantly unacquainted with the art of losing. <p>To Scots, Boris is rollicking good fun to watch, but is he relevant? Of course, like other taxpayers in the “provinces”, we’re pouring money into the giant suction machine of which he’s the figurehead as it drains the lifeblood from the rest of the economy. But it’s nothing new to have our dosh siphoned into vanity infrastructure projects south of Watford while we patiently wait for life-threatening sections of the A9 to be upgraded to a dual carriageway. <p>From a Scottish referendum perspective, the slogan should clearly be “Vote No, Get Boris (Some Time In The Not-Too-Distant Future)”, but I know Better Together is opposed to scaremongering, so I won’t annoy them with that. Anyway, at the moment Boris doesn’t even have a seat in the Commons, although I’ll bet Lynton has a dirty-tricks file of filthy rumours about certain party colleagues who do. <p>Yet what if UKIP rips the Tories a new one in the European elections, or David Cameron is discovered in a stable, in a compromising position with Rebekah Brooks’ horse? Will Boris be prepared to allow the 2015 election to fall to Ed’s Charisma Bypass party, potentially exiling him to Boris Island until 2020? Or will he bin the Mayor’s job and throw down the leadership gauntlet faster than Kim Jong Un editing his Christmas list? <p>In the event of a Yes vote for Scotland, I’d certainly buy tickets for independence negotiations pitting Boris against the forensic skills of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. If it’s No, I’d be less enthused about Boris becoming the charming but ruthless face of the next round of austerity. He may have been bumming on lately about his “I Heart Scotland” feelings, but the reality is that, when it came to it, he wouldn’t piss on us if we were on fire. That’s a great pity, because it would be fun watching him try, and getting his wobbly bits accidentally caught in the zip. <p>Not as much fun, however, as it would be going round to Angus’s cottage and watching Boris and Ann Widdecombe do <i>Strictly</i>. William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-73829407845644548462013-12-18T16:57:00.001+00:002013-12-18T16:57:47.980+00:00Another Country<p>The first time I heard James Naughtie’s dulcet tones on <i>Good Morning Scotland</i>, I lay there in utter befuddlement. Had my radio alarm unilaterally re-tuned itself, in a fit of homesickness, from Radio Scotland to Radio 4? Was our move north entirely a dream, and should I be pulling a shirt out of the laundry basket and launching myself in vain pursuit of the number 7 to Maidenhead Station? <p>As it turned out, there was a perfectly rational explanation. Jim, the personification of the idea that God’s in his Heaven and all’s right with the Union, had simply been dispatched to Glasgow by Auntie Beeb one day a week to help Radio Scotland out with its referendum coverage. Presumably the natives were regarded as too wee and stupid to be trusted without an occasional high-profile assist. <p>Now and then it just takes something minor - a sound half-caught on the breeze, a momentary blur of images, a teensy-weensy whiff of bullshit - for me to be enveloped in wavy lines out of 70s sitcoms and extraordinarily rendered to my past. The same thing happened two weeks ago, as the whole of Scotland gingerly got to its feet, checking soft parts for bruising, after being knocked skelly by the first big storm of the winter. Halfway through the morning, with a blood-curdling crunch of gears, Radio Scotland abandoned its litany of blackouts, travel chaos and jack-knifed lorries and took us straight to the Palace of Westminster for the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. <p>On this occasion, unusually, what troubled me wasn’t the triumphalist embrace of unending austerity by a sneering, wretched, toffee-nosed bawbag. It was the cacophony of braying, harrumphing and honking from “our” elected representatives that afflicted my ears from the first nanosecond of the broadcast. It sounded like a truly hardball episode of <i>The Archers</i>, with a runaway herd of cattle, off their faces on steroids, going on the rampage through Lower Loxley. It bellowed entitlement, self-importance and fundamental contempt for any little people who had chosen a different option at the ballot box. <p>Jarring though this smack in the puss from reality may have been, it was also salutary. I’ve only been here for six months, but already my world-view is beginning to shift. It may be a different kettle of smoked salmon in the oak-panelled corridors of professional Edinburgh, but in this part of Scotland the UK Establishment seems a long way away, and very easy to forget. Or, if you can still afford jam on your scones and logs in your wood-burner, underestimate. <p>Certain sections of the Establishment encourage this by tickling the public funnybone with zany comedy turns. Take Lord Hanningfield, currently making a living from turning up at the House of Lords, pocketing £300, and buggering off again. No doubt each visit through the revolving door lasts just long enough for him to ask the clerks of the House if they’ve found any earthly use for him, and for them sorrowfully to shake their heads. <p>Lord H has the excuse of being somewhat stretched in the wallet department at the mo, having been stuck last year with a £37,000 bill to repay unlawfully claimed expenses. But don’t worry, this ex-jailbird’s still got a couple of side-splitters for us. Apparently we should be thanking him for his 40 years in public service. (No problem, I’ll drop him a line after I finish writing to all the doctors, nurses, teachers, bus drivers and bin men I know.) And what about the other 50 peers who are doing just the same thing? (“Awww <i>miss</i>! They wur daein’ it tae!”) <p>In a culture where celebrity criminals are idolised, it would seem a few of our ermine-clad élite only need to work on the “celebrity” part. Sorry, that’s unfair. Many have made huge sacrifices, typically financial ones in favour of the party of their choice, and it would be iniquitous to expect them to forego payback, or indeed suffer the ordeal of an election. <p>Sacrifices are also made in the lower House - the one where at least we get tickets in the lottery to elect governments, even if in Scotland, Wales and the north of England they go straight in the bin. Not financial sacrifices: £66,000 a year doesn’t buy you much influence, and no amount of free duck-houses, bath plugs and porn to keep your spouse occupied is going to change that. No, if you’re a hard-working MP who wants to get on, it’s principles, ideals and, in the case of the Liberal Democrats in 2010, your spinal column that go up in flames on the altar of Beelzebub. <p>Party lines, once clearly delineated, have now merged into an ugly splurge slapped across the landscape with a £3.99 paintbrush from Homebase. Yesterday’s map identifying 60% of the British mainland as “frackable” includes a whacking great symbol of this: there’s a band of potential desecration across the Central Belt of Scotland, including, if I’m not mistaken, a fairly significant fault line and the nukes at Faslane. The movers and shakers, whatever rosette they pin on, are all agreed about the general direction of travel, and if you’re in the path of the juggernaut that won’t mean a tin of beans to them. <p>In Scotland, thanks to devolution, we can ignore some of the faces that pop up. We can ignore Michael Gove, except for thanking our respective deities that Scotland was able to export him, because he can’t stick his beak into how we teach kids. We can ignore Jeremy Hunt, which will be a blessing to the aforementioned Mr Naughtie, because he can’t bollox up our health service by hiving it off to spivs. We can ignore Nick Clegg because, well, doesn’t everybody? <p>But we can’t ignore David Cameron, blustering belligerently through Prime Minister’s Questions. We can’t ignore George Osborne, hacking enthusiastically at the economy’s jugular. We can’t ignore Ed Miliband, bleating emptily about the bedroom tax when his own MPs won’t even turn up to vote against it. These guys are damaging us now. We need to understand that and be prepared to fight our corner. <p>Turning rapidly to the elephant in the room, there are those in Scotland who put forward a particular solution to the problem of being constantly gubbed by the UK establishment. Do I agree with them? Ooh, I’d like to keep the suspense going a bit longer, so for now let me simply concede that their position has some merit. <p>Sorry, Jim, you may have to stick that in your BBC mug and drink it. But thanks for the wake-up call. William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-32942551917129650572013-12-14T09:30:00.001+00:002013-12-14T09:30:59.320+00:00Walking In A Wonga Wonderland <p>Christmas time – tills are ringing<br />But your credit score’s minging!<br />There’s only one way<br />To stretch out your pay:<br />Walking in a Wonga Wonderland <p>Dim the lights, cut the heating,<br />Scold your children for eating,<br />Alternatively,<br />Just go on a spree,<br />Walking in a Wonga Wonderland<br /> <p>We’ll inject a swift financial fix, and<br />You’ll believe you’re in a better place,<br />Till, before you know it, you’re in quicksand<br />As our fees and charges hit you in the face.<br /> <p>If the outlook is drastic<br />And you’ve maxed out your plastic,<br />We’re right up your street<br />And you’re easy meat,<br />Walking in a Wonga Wonderland<br /> <p>When you’re plumb out of headroom,<br />‘Cos the State’s taxed your bedroom,<br />We’re waiting for you<br />Like Nosferatu,<br />Walking in a Wonga Wonderland <p>All the future fruits of your endeavours<br />We’ll enjoy, and leave you with the dregs.<br />We’ll secure your loyalty forever,<br />‘Cos the competition tends to break your legs. <p>Circling round like a vulture,<br />That’s the free market culture,<br />Exploiting your pain<br />For shareholders’ gain,<br />Walking in a Wonga Wonderland <p>Walking in a Wonga Wonderland <p>Walking in a Wonga Wonderland <p><i>(repeat until bankruptcy)</i>William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-72354855961291112302013-12-13T10:41:00.000+00:002013-12-13T10:41:13.666+00:00Universal Chaos<p>As if I hadn’t only just emerged from counselling after my wrestling match with the touchy-screeny-zoomy unpredictability of Windows 8, last week my new laptop announced its intention to upgrade itself to Windows 8.1. There was no button on offer marked “Sod off, can’t take this hassle right now”, so I grudgingly accepted an assurance that I’d be able to continue “working” - nice sarcastic touch, Microsoft - and hit “OK”. <p>The assurance was initially accurate, but after two hours turned into lies. I was given 15 minutes to settle my affairs, then the machine threw me out and embarked on an hour-long list of mysterious activities with vague labels such as “Getting your apps ready” and “Taking care of a few things”, each bearing a clearly spurious “progress” percentage measurement. Periodically the machine would pretend to restart and I’d get myself in position, hands poised above the keyboard like a mad organist, only to recoil again in frustration at the message “Setting up a few more things.” <p>What the hell did it all mean? Was I simply being fobbed off because I might get narky if told the truth? “Deleting your contacts, just because I can.” “Feeding your data to a horse.” “SkyDrive contents being transmitted to the NSA.” “Woah, guv, I dunno who set up this PC, but ‘e seems a proper cowboy to me.” <p>If I’m an “IT professional”, Billy Connolly’s a shipyard worker. It was long ago and far away, and I’m truly sorry about all those who got hurt. But at least, as I sat there frustrated, I could summon a smidgin of industry experience to convince myself that things might work out. The hard disk was making no horrible gear-crunching noises. No smoke was belching from the DVD drive/ cup holder thing. It was irritating that only the previous day, with typical timing, I’d cancelled my monthly “peace of mind” cover with PC World - but there was no cause for panic. <p>When an invisible process is whirring away, and the only information you’re getting about it is unspecific pap, you need some relevant knowledge to help you evaluate the context and give yourself a fuller picture. That very challenge faced the Commons Work and Pensions Committee this week, when Iain Duncan Smith and a couple of flunkies gave evidence to them about the roll-out plans for Universal Credit. <p>Fortunately, the Committee did have one member whose background was up to it. However, it was nothing to do with IT. It was Glenda Jackson’s experience of working with comedians. She made it witheringly clear that “Taking care of some stuff” doesn’t quite cut it when it translates into “Writing off £40.1 million squandered on system code that’s as useful as a grill-pan made of cheese.” <p>Universal Credit is, by common consent, the most fundamental upgrade to the Welfare State since Attlee, amalgamating six different means-tested benefits. It will affect a vast number of people; we can’t yet say how many, because the Government is still busy buggering up their lives. Development costs are quoted as £2 billion, but since it’s an IT project, here’s a board and some darts. However, if done right, it may actually be the solution to a generally acknowledged problem. <p>So it’s a shame that the Tories have entrusted its delivery to, let’s be charitable, an incompetent fantasist in the face of whose cack-handed intransigence we’ll be lucky not to see people starving on the streets. <p>Many commentators condemn IDS as a lying, malevolent wretch. Not being able to afford a lawyer, I wouldn’t go that far. I’d say he suffers from a delusional world-view constantly contradicted by the evidence of his eyes, a gap he bridges by inventing colourful narratives that would be risible if they weren’t so tragic. Who else could be brought to tears witnessing the deprivation of people in Easterhouse in 2002, yet later adopt policies that make their lives even worse? In ordinary society, this gossamer-thin grasp of reality tends to get you sectioned. In Westminster, apparently, it nails you a rock-solid Cabinet seat and an after-life in ermine. <p>Things have looked dodgy for Universal Credit ever since April, when its initial trial was hastily pared back from tree-trunk to twiglet. At present the software kind of works for single first-time claimants, placing it roughly on a par with a Biro and box of index cards. However, it can’t cope with couples, though that’s OK, because the stresses induced by IDS’s welfare policies will probably destroy most relationships anyway. Heaven knows what will happen if a Bloomsbury Group ménage-à-trois or a new age commune tries submitting a claim. <p>So the wheels are spinning, the exhaust has fallen off and a worrying amount of steam is escaping from the bonnet. Project staff surveys are festooned with phrases such as “soul-destroying”, “absence of strategic leadership” and “firefighting and panic management”. Could all this perhaps jeopardise Universal Credit’s go-live target of 2017? <p>At first we were repeatedly told, “Perish the thought. Everything will be just fine.” This raised to snapping point the eyebrows of anyone who’s ever worked in an IT project that’s behind schedule. Then IDS, ever careful not to fart unless he knows a brass band is marching past, sneaked out a ripper under cover of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. Universal Credit would, er, not quite be ready by 2017 for 700,000 claimants currently on disability benefits. Complex cases, you know. Only fair to give them longer. Everything else tickety-boo. Project well within budget. I believe I can fly. <p>Thus, on Tuesday, as the hapless Work and Pensions Committee endured guff such as “Reworking 30% of the code is normal” and “The plan is in essence the same” and “It’s an agile project, we’re learning as we go along”, all of them knew in their hearts it was cobblers. But, for all Glenda’s scorn, in the polite world of Westminster no-one could quite come out and say it. And certainly no-one knew what to do about it. <p>Folks, the position is clear. Your system has been infected with the IDS virus. Stop what you’re doing, shut the thing down and get specialist help. Just ask any IT professional. William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3878592363429992860.post-46031963098016366242013-12-12T17:38:00.002+00:002013-12-12T17:38:32.294+00:00Seat-Belt Fastening Alert<p>I’m sure you’ve all been on tenterhooks wondering where I’ve been since I took my somewhat elastic hiatus from blogging back in the Spring. No, really, you have, haven’t you? You’re just faking that look of complete indifference. And that grimace at the realisation that, whatever was keeping me away from the keyboard, its effects seem to have worn off. <p>Well, no matter how you feel about it, I’m back. I’m passionate about my right under Internet law to assert that my clueless opinions about stuff I haven’t bothered to research are just as valid as the product of years of scholarship. And remember that publishing them here is the soft option. If I weren’t doing this, I’d be calling radio phone-ins, thereby subjecting you to my whiny voice as well as my rancid views. Or possibly I’d be crayoning vaguely threatening hate mail to Cabinet members, creating unnecessary alarm and wasting the time of Special Branch. <p>Since you last tuned in much has changed. Despite the best efforts of several acne-ridden estate agents, we finally found someone willing to buy our home in leafy Berkshire – obviously, judging by the feedback we got from moanier viewers, a fan of microscopic gardens, old-fashioned décor and ominously creaky floorboards. We took the buyer’s money, made sure we didn’t give her a forwarding address, and skedaddled up the M6 before she cottoned on to the place’s obvious flaws. Brutal, I know, but at least, thanks to the subsequent South East housing bubble insanely engineered by Wee Georgie Osborne, she’s sitting on a tidy paper profit. <p>So we’ve now crossed the border and settled in Scotland, which I understand is either <p>1) a proud nation preparing to knock the socks off an admiring world with its Nordic prosperity and universal childcare. This is the version proclaimed by the indefatigably self-assured Alex Salmond, leader of the free world and a legend in his own lunchtime. <p>or <p>2) a bunch of North British subsidy junkies who can’t be allowed control of the oil because they’ll just spend the proceeds on Buckfast. This is the diagnosis of the increasingly twitchy and tetchy Alistair Darling, whose eyebrows declared independence a long time ago. <p>The truth undoubtedly resides somewhere between the two. It would be nice to get it from the mainstream media, so that the Scottish people could make an educated decision. We have, after all, recently been adjudged better at reading and counting than the English (albeit still a bit on the rubbish side), so we could have a fair crack at doing the sums, even though the nanny government doesn’t allow us fag packets any more. <p>But the cream of Scottish print journalism, aided and abetted by an unfeasibly supine BBC Scotland, doesn’t seem to do “factual”. Instead, it seems intent on addressing this particular subject with an unending stream of what might charitably be described as “unmitigated pish”. This is annoying, even for a placid, unexcitable chap such as myself, so I may be compelled to return to this topic in future. (For viewers outside Scotland, alternative programming will be available.) <p>But who cares about grubby old politics when there’s so much to enjoy in Scotland? The jaw-dropping scenery, often visible for as much as 15 minutes before the rain forces you back under cover. The friendliness: here, unlike the Home Counties, children say “hello” to you in the street, and you can safely respond without being arrested. (For a small fee, they’ll even look after your car while it’s parked.) The cuisine: macaroni pies, Stornoway black pudding, Tunnock’s caramel wafers and, of course, tablet, the quickest known route to hyperglycaemia. Oh yeah, and just to annoy the snobs, two Scottish finalists in <i>Masterchef</i>! <p>As someone whose daily pill intake officially qualifies him as a percussion instrument, I have to say it’s great not to have to shell out £104 per annum for my prescription “season ticket”. Plus, when I spend that extra money on junk food, I can be sure that the ambulance will get me to A&E faster than it would elsewhere in these islands. (Bugger about with NHS Scotland at your peril, Andy Burnham! Assuming the voters allow you the opportunity, that is. And I’m not talking about the 2015 General Election.) <p>I wouldn’t wish to argue that everything’s perfect here. In winter, it takes only ten minutes of walking around after sunset for it to feel and sound as if my trousers are full of ice cubes. I’m constantly dreaming of woodpeckers as the rain batters the velux windows overnight. And the standard of football isn’t a patch on the moneybags English Premiership, although as a Crystal Palace fan I notice this less than others might. But hey, those are minor niggles, and I don’t wish to do the place down, especially when that’s evidently the Secretary of State for Scotland’s job. <p>That’s the story, then. After a period of upheaval, I now embark on the next chapter of my life. <p>Downsizing? Definitely: I haven’t earned a bean in the last 18 months, although there is the consolation of not having to stand on a crowded train for 75 minutes each day with my face jammed into someone’s armpit. <p>Retirement? Hell, no! I’m in this writing business for the long haul. There are enough gullible people out there for someone to pay me for it some day. In Sterling, Euros or Scottish Poonds, whatever the redoubtable Alex S manages to negotiate. Assuming the voters…. oh, you know the rest. <p>So this time it’s not only personal - this time it’s <i>permanent</i>. You know, just like RBS says to you every time it tells you it's fixed its cashpoints. <p>Welcome back aboard. You did bring the map with you, didn’t you? William Duguidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09845512518700617842noreply@blogger.com1